is time quantized? is there a consistent, smallest unit to time? time is defined after the phenomenon "change". like for acceleration, a second is the unit of change when something falls 9.8 m under earths gravitation. so the smallest time may be defined by the smallest possible change in the universe. That being a displacement of 10^-35 m. ( suggested smallest dimensions)
the answer is important
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Anonymous2010-01-11 13:23
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<PriitM> Can a baby have erection while still being in mothers uterus?
<appletizer> PriitM, yes
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Space is seemingly continuous. That is, to the best of our knowledge, you can theoretically divide a meter magically drawn in empty space into smaller and smaller pieces forever.
However, at the Planck scale, weird things happen to physical objects. Anything with a wavelength smaller than one Planck length ends up having too much energy density and becomes a black hole with an event horizon one Planck length across. That is, the Planck length is the smallest possible size for an object, because anything smaller will become a black hole of that size regardless. According to current models, anyway.
That does not mean, however, that the spatial dimensions are quantized. That Planck length object can move a fraction of a Planck length to the left or down or forward through Space. Indeed, an object moving one Planck length unit per Planck time unit would be traveling at the speed of light, so of course most things would be traveling slower. We just wouldn't be able to physically measure the exact speed to that degree of precision.
The nature of Time is significantly more controversial and speculative. We don't even know what Time actually ***IS*** yet. We don't even have a proper vocabulary established to describe it. Our current understanding of Time (and Space, for that matter) is overdue for a complete overhaul from the beginning. Some philosophers question if our brains are even capable of conceptualizing Time (and Space) in such a way that it can be fully understood. For the /g/eeks our there, that would be like an AI program for a video game NPC... being controlled by the game software... which is running in a virtual machine... being able to deduce and describe the processor it is physically running on... without anyone giving it any hints... simply through its observations and measurements within its fantasy RPG environment.
That said, as it stands now, the Planck time unit may or may not be a sign that Time is quantized. There is no real answer either way. Lots of hypotheticals each way, but nothing with real evidence behind it. Sorry, but that's just the way it is.
It does (currently) seem as though the Planck time is the shortest length of time we'd ever be able to physically measure. Can events happen at fractional points on that time line? We don't know, because the smallest length of time we've been able to measure is about 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (10^26) Planck time units. We're not even close yet.