# Scientists suggest spacetime has no time dimension

The concept of time as a way to measure the duration of events is not only deeply intuitive, it also plays an important role in our mathematical descriptions of physical systems. For instance, we define an object’s speed as its displacement per a given time. But some researchers theorize that this Newtonian idea of time as an absolute quantity that flows on its own, along with the idea that time is the fourth dimension of spacetime, are incorrect. They propose to replace these concepts of time with a view that corresponds more accurately to the physical world: time as a measure of the numerical order of change. Two recent papers describe in more detail what this means.

No time dimension

They begin by explaining how we usually assume that time is an absolute physical quantity that plays the role of the independent variable (time, t, is often the x-axis on graphs that show the evolution of a physical system). But, as they note, we never really measure t. What we do measure is an object’s frequency, speed, etc. In other words, what experimentally exists are the motion of an object and the tick of a clock, and we compare the object’s motion to the tick of a clock to measure the object’s frequency, speed, etc. By itself, t has only a mathematical value, and no primary physical existence.

This view doesn’t mean that time does not exist, but that time has more to do with space than with the idea of an absolute time. So while 4D spacetime is usually considered to consist of three dimensions of space and one dimension of time, the researchers’ view suggests that it’s more correct to imagine spacetime as four dimensions of space. In other words, as they say, the universe is “timeless.”

Read more here Scientists suggest spacetime has no time dimension.

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### One Response to Scientists suggest spacetime has no time dimension

1. salam siddique says:

sorry if i m wrong but as far as i know minkowski’s space (extended work of einstein’s 4d theory) represents 4d as (x,y,z,ct) where x,y,z are lengths ,t is time & c is the speed of light.
talking dimensionally all the four are lengths but taking ‘c’ as constant (as said in einstein’s theory of relativity) the fourth dimension remains as time and hence it becomes 3d+t.