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On a light-hearted note:

The crew of Red Dwarf - three million years from Earth - find a time machine:

Kryten: Sirs, choose any year.

Rimmer: Since we can't guarantee this time drive is going to function properly, I suggest we select a neutral time period for our first jaunt.

Lister: He's got a point. Let's go to someplace nice and safe and dull. How about 1422?

Cat: How about 1421?

Lister: What's the difference?

Cat: No difference. I just wanted to make it look like I was paying attention.

Rimmer: Load 1421, Kryten.

Kryten: 1421 loaded, sir. August 17th. Engaging the time drive.

Kryten pushes buttons on the remote control. The screen is filled with a flash of red light.

Lister: Hey, we did it!

Kryten: Indeed we did. All the ship's chronometers indicate that this is August the 16th, in the year 1421, just one day out.

Rimmer: Give us visual. Let's see what it's like out there. Lister: Okay, punching it up.

15. Quick shot of empty boring space.

16. Back to the Cockpit -

Lister: Again? We're still where we were!

Kryten: Of course. We're still in deep space, sir, only now we're in deep space in the 15th century. Isn't it wonderful?

Rimmer: So we're still three million years away from Earth?

Kryten: Well, yeah.

Lister: Taking her back to the present.

Kryten: Keyed in. Engaged.

Flash of red light again.

Time is continuity, just the other side of infinity.
Our universe, a finite derivative thereof,
a white hot ember, aflight,
is bound and determined by the song that molded our ride.

Now!time is a slide show.
As a wave travels through water, the cosmic background hosts life teleported from Now! to Now!
We step to the tune of the CMB,
Now! to Now!, at 300Ghz?, 2x10^-43?

My thoughts' of Planck!time always end with a smile.
Imagine the temerity,
We ascribe the point beyond which time itself can not peer.
We've created God in our own image, and he's returned the favor.

Or, Is this the point at which we lose touch with time,
by definition, the realization denied us for our ephemeral existence?
In time, free from unsanctioned intrusion, a universe is borne.

Well, in the mean time I did read the paper, and to me it seems perfectly commonsensical, although I'm still unsure about one of his arguments. But, as far as I can see, no-one else here, except Mr. Rockets, did read it, or get it. Everyone seems to be enamoured with the concept of time as the fourth dimension, vainly holding on, maybe, to some secret hope of time travel.
I, for one, am more confident than ever now. There is no time dimension except in graphs. In the real world, there are only matter-energy units moving at relative speed to each other. And suddenly, the world seems normal again. Yes, I too lament the demise of time travel, but speculation won't bring Santa out of non-existence either.

NO!!!

Annalen der Physik 4 XVII pp. 891-921 (1905)

The clock that traverses the greatest amount of space accumulates the smallest amount of time. There is no change within an inertial frame of reference. It is only when clocks are made local and compared that the Twin Paradox (that is not paradoxical) arises.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/relativ/airtim.html
http://metrologyforum.tm.agilent.com/pdf/flying_clock_math.pdf
http://metrologyforum.tm.agilent.com/cesium.shtml
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0008012
Hafele-Keating Experiment

http://bkocay.cs.umanitoba.ca/Students/Theory.html
The distorted cube

Of course there is such a thing as Time. There is a "before," a "now," and a "later."

It is easily measurable, and the fact that time passes is easily observable.

The fact that time is relative does not affect its existence.

Good Poem but it was more of a spiritual truth.
(every truth has to be spiritual in nature)
Let me add something more to Plank Time.
The Plank Time is Plank Distance divided by speed of light.. At that level the quantum events overshadow our definition of speed and thus in that space it is possible to go from one place to another in an instant...Therefore in my opinion the Time dimension collapses at Plank Scale... you want to know why ?it is simple imagine you wish to calculate Entropy of 2 atoms.. Entorpy is a statistical concept and collapses if we reduce the sample sapce ...
similarly time collapses the moment we reduce the scale to Planks level....
Or may be we enter a new "Time" dimension ... in a sense we do not understand.. for e.g assume that there is a 11th Dimension and there are billions of Gravitons floating around... then we can measure the Entorpy of the gravitons .. which will essentially imply that we have entered a new Time Dimension...
This is my original concept and I think it explains how consciousness is indepedent of Time...

Please dont take my "original concept" idea seriously ... My originality is the reflection of Popular Science books, Discovery Channel , Web and my passion for Physics...
I never took the risk of becoming a Physicist..

Gentlemen, gentlemen...
Lynd never said that there is no such thing as time. What he says is that it isn't existential, you can't isolate any atomic components of it, it doesn't obey any laws that would make it, say, turn in reverse, warp, or dance the hula, and you can't treat is as if it were just another direction.
There are links to his paper scattered all over these sites, you know. You might consider reading it before bashing it. (Dunno, that's my quirky way of thinking: Reading, then bashing... Maybe it's just me)

I hear you dkv,
We are in the same boat. Besides, it seems like the theoretical physics elite has been using calculus like ancient I Ching masters would use their little sticks. It doesn't really say anything, it just serves to validate their musings and make it all look cool.

Calculus is a wonderful tool and surprisingly it has been very successful in its application because the world is so discreet.

Certainly. No questions raised. What bothers me is that some venture to treat time as a dimension, of equal rights with dimensions of space. Sure, it can be represented as such mathematically, but let us please keep in mind that mathematical representations are metaphorical.

You wrote:
"but let us please keep in mind that mathematical representations are metaphorical."

What makes you so sure that this is true? On what basis do you conclude that this entire entity we refer to as "the universe" isn't constructed, as a fractal, from zeros and ones?

One thing history has taught us about the common man is that he is almost always wrong.

Hi dkv, Thanks for the kind word. The poem's point was in accord with the Voice's, "Lynd never said that there is no such thing as time. What he says is that it isn't existential..."

Quantization of time may merely be a convenience; convenience related to the fundamentals of day to day life, to physical barriers or levels of understanding, and perhaps, ultimately, related to a fundamental iterative; that being the rate at which light/life is 'clocked' from Now! to Now! across the cosmic background ~regards

Quantization is not for convenience.. it is required and no other possibility has been found to explian the observation.And I think it has been proved also.
In my opinion we have not fully understood time ...We havent discovered all the properties of time...
Let me ask you a more fundamental question ...
What is Dimension?

The documentairy " Killing time " is worth to watch in this aspect. John Barbour explains why time doesn't exist in the lineair form we think it has. Click lin video here http://noorderlicht.vpro.nl/afleveringen/2380593/ , the narrator is Dutch, but most is English ...

Also the paper from Peter Lynds is at the moment in the eye of scientist : http://www.peterlynds.net.nz/ ...
the paper "Time and Classical and Quantum Mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. Discontinuityis" is here http://peterlynds.net.nz/papers.html

I think time is a wave that controls the speed at which everything operates.

What is Wave?

The only thing we can state with any sense that we are correct is that time relates to an increase in entropy. Beyond that all comment is pure speculation.

Even the question of whether time is a fundamental property of the universe or is derived is uncertain.

My recommendation: Pick up a copy of Brian Green's "The Fabric of the Cosmos".

Isn't it beautiful how before the invention of the "mechanical" clock and its obscuration of larger scale motion in favor of "turning" rather than "moving", of "feeding" us the time rather than having us "grow-our-own", isn't it beautiful how before all that, we used to coordinate our interactions so consciously with motion? (I'll meet you when that star moves over there, I'll find you when all these sands have finished moving from here to here).


So does time move forward or does it circle back over itself? Will we ever be able to definitively agree, even scientifically, on a definition which will allow only one of these?

Restate your question:

"So does entropy move in one direction or does it sometimes spontaneously decrease?

The answer should be clear.