dial_100 Posted April 7, 2016 Posted April 7, 2016 (edited) Quote Imaginary time is a concept derived from special relativity and quantum mechanics and is mathematically convenient in connecting quantum mechanics with statistical mechanics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_time Imaginary time Here is something i came across today. I am a guy with just about an average intelligence. where are we going with this theory really? Time was linear and now we add another dimension to our existence called imaginary time which is perpendicular to the real time. But unlike time what are the end points of this imaginary time. real time has past and future, what would imaginary time define for us. in what direction would it move, upward or downward. Time can only move forward. To measure time we have to capture a moment and then start counting to the other end. But once we reach to the other end of time, we cannot go back to the past. And that is a the nature of real time. How this analogy be used for imaginary time. Look forward to learn something. Edited April 7, 2016 by dial_100 rkt.india 1
dial_100 Posted April 11, 2016 Author Posted April 11, 2016 unfortunately not a single reply.. Thanks RKT.
rkt.india Posted April 11, 2016 Posted April 11, 2016 1 hour ago, dial_100 said: unfortunately not a single reply.. Thanks RKT. ask dexter. dial_100 1
gattaca Posted April 13, 2016 Posted April 13, 2016 Looks like it is same as real time expect you rotate by 90 degrees. It will have past and future as well. Wiki source: Imaginary time is obtained from real time via a Wick rotation by in the complex plane dial_100 1
Vilander Posted April 13, 2016 Posted April 13, 2016 wonder if this is related to parallel universes concept, perpendicular time.
gattaca Posted April 13, 2016 Posted April 13, 2016 Reddit has good explaination: Why is it so important? Well Hawking and Hartle worked out a really neat model of the universe... They were trying to solve a "universal" wavefunction, a quantum mechanical description of everything in the universe. One corrollary (as I understand it, which is not terribly well), is that when time gets very close to t=0 at the big bang, it becomes imaginary instead of real valued. Meaning that t=0 is the point where a 4-Dimensional static space (since there's no time, there's no evolution over time) becomes a 3+1 space-time where things evolve over time. This thus answers: "what's before the big bang?" The answer is that time doesn't exist before the big bang, not in any way we're familiar... it's just a spatial valued thing, there's just 4 space-like dimensions in the "other direction" from 0. Or yet another way, when you travel over a pole of the earth... you travel north and north and north, until you get to the pole and move onto a different line of longitude and begin heading south again. If you traveled "back" in time to the big bang, you'd keep going until you get to the big bang where geometry turns you back round and you start going forward in time in our own universe along a new path.
Recommended Posts