Does measuring the age of the universe in "years" give us a false impression of the "reality" of it?

[drokhole]

I've always found it somewhat odd that we measure the universe's age in 'years' (13.7 billion, by last count). I understand that it helps give us a perspective on things, and allows for convenient/common reference - but a 'year' is unique to our Earth/Sun orbital relationship (so, too, the seconds/minutes/hours of Earth's rotation). Hell, the universe was around 9 billion 'years' before the Earth was even a twinkle in its eye. How was 'time' even measured then? And do 'years' accurately measure that time? It might seem pedantic, but this language does create somewhat of a false 'reality,' in my opinion. For instance, what if we thought about it this way:

1 Jupiter year = 12 Earth years (roughly). If we used the Jupiter 'year' as a marker (in other words, if it were what we defined as a 'year'), the age of the universe would then be 1.14 billion years, giving it the impression of being much younger.

Like I said, splitting hairs, but I think stuff like this is lost sight of when trying to 'explain the universe.' We say the universe is 13.7 billion years old, but that's only its 'age' in terms of how many times the Earth has revolved around the sun. There's an old adage I like that applies here - 'don't confuse the measurement for what is being measured.' And I feel like, by realizing this, we would get a better handle, even scientifically, on the things we're trying to make sense of - even if it does seem like it's parsing words.

(this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvBKR5GPCWc - touches on what I'm getting at as well)

[Avalux]

1. "Years" are all we know as humans. Time is linear to us.

The universe is not linear but we use years to describe how old it is so people have some context.

[patrice]

3. Which would be fine if everyone understood that IS what we are doing, but, mostly,

people do not think about the differences between their own assumptions and the phenomenological multi-verse, so they are not aware of exactly what they themselves "mean".

[Avalux]

11. Comprehension is an issue.....most people cannot solve a calculus equation.

There are a lot of other examples as well; if the knowledge isn't there to be able to fully comprehend, the best that can be done is to explain so people DO understand, if possible (sometimes it isn't possible).

Sometimes people will continue to insist the universe is only 6K years old.

[ret5hd]

2. The answer is 42.

[patrice]

4. Re the "measure" - that's something I try to tell people frequently: the words you use

and the thing(s) you are referring to ARE NOT IDENTICALLY EQUAL. We fight over this stuff all of the time, without realizing how relative and, hence, incorrect every bit of it is - with the exception of the un-ambiguated experience itself. Not that we shouldn't do this, because we need to in order to communicate, just that all of us should be MUCH more aware of what we are doing when we "communicate".

[patrice]

5. . . . or are "communicated" with. nt

[drokhole]

14. Well put! And that touches on the underlying issue...

Alfred Korzybski pioneered that notion with his 'General Semantics' (wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics) - which holds that "the map is not the territory, the word is not the thing defined." Alan Watts (from the video) and Robert Anton Wilson do a great job of expounding upon the concept in their various works. Wilson, further, highlights the ultimate measuring tool in which all other measurements are funneled and experienced - the human nervous system (which has its own sensory limits).

Like you said, it's not so much that this has to be a crippling realization, it's just something that serves us well to be more aware of.

(Limits of Language - Alan Watts - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLJLgrCSt9c)

[patrice]

17. Thank you very much for those references. I will follow-up on them. I was interested

in the late Victorians and then in the Absurdists in my undergraduate literature efforts. The late Victorians were interesting, because the economic, cultural, and social changes they experienced, as a result of the Industrial Revolution, wrought upon them changes that were the earliest harbingers of Existential Angst and, as you probably know, Waiting for Godot is an illustration of these points, amongst other things.

All of it is an interesting point and people DO understand it, just rather selectively it seems. They do not, for example, think the letters g, r, e, e, and n are green. They know that and yet they will go to war over the use of the letters f, a, i, t, and h or p, a, t, r, i, o, t, i, s, and m. They don't make mistakes about the various contextual referents for the letters b, l, a, c, and k, but the letters f, u, c, and k mean one and only one thing no matter what the context is . . . very puzzling.

[drokhole]

18. If you liked the Absurdists, I think you'll particularly enjoy Robert Anton Wilson...

...especially these books:

Prometheus Rising
http://www.amazon.com/Prometheus-Rising-Robert-Anton-Wilson/dp/1561840564
(worth reading first)

Quantum Psychology
http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Psychology-Brain-Software-Programs/dp/1561840718

And here are a few clips of him on YouTube:

Neurological Relativism and Time-binding
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ-QV5U4IEA

On Reality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuOplymDx4I


What I've found interesting in relation to the relatively modern existential dilemma in Western culture is the more ancient practice of Zen Buddhism, and how they seemed to have encountered the same problem, but dealt with it in an entirely different way - and even regard it with delight. I defer to Alan Watts on this one:

On Zen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGWdzFyOOFw

[Fumesucker]

6. The Planck time is a universal measurement..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_time

In physics, the Planck time, (tP), is the unit of time in the system of natural units known as Planck units. It is the time required for light to travel, in a vacuum, a distance of 1 Planck length.<1> The unit is named after Max Planck, who was the first to propose it.

[tridim]

13. Does Planck time assume space is uniform and straight?

Because there is no such thing.

[Fumesucker]

15. If you are aware of a more consistent and universal measurement system for time..

Then by all means share that information.

Edited due to caffeine deficiency.

[tridim]

16. I'm not anti-Planck time :)

I just find it fun to argue since we don't really know what time is, or if it even exists.

[caraher]

22. In practice one generally uses operational definitions

To be only slightly flip, time is whatever it is that clocks measure...

[Lithos]

7. Agreed...

The earth is something like 4.55 billion years old.

So, let's create a new unit of time - call it a "creationist day" and set the value to 650 million secular years. That way we can reconcile the 7 days in Genesis.

[WheelWalker]

8. Eat more fungi

[laconicsax]

9. Do you have an alternative?

The universe has been around for a finite amount of time. Do you have an alternative measure of that time that makes more sense than years?

[sudopod]

20. I got one! How about we base our unit of time on the speed of light!

Specifically, the time it takes light to go 9,460,528,412,464 kilometers.

[laconicsax]

21. Meh...too circular.

A meter is defined as the distance light travels in 1/299,792,458 of a second.

A better measure of time would be the time taken for an atom to jump between energy levels.

[caraher]

23. Of course, that's essentially the current definition of the second

From http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/second.html">NIST:

The second is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium 133 atom.

Expect this definition to change as different physical systems permit better precision and reproducibility. For instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_clock#Research">optical frequency combs now appear to offer a http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/projects/inms/trapped-ion.html">path to improvements in performance over atomic clocks based on hyperfine atomic transitions.

[damntexdem]

10. We measure using instruments we have developed.

That includes years. However, science has recalibrated in terms of universal constants -- so it says "year" but can express it in a universal constant.

[tridim]

12. It bugs me too.

But it is the most local, most accurate, most stable natural "clock" we have. One most of us can observe and understand without introducing abstractions.

Man-made measurements bother me even more, especially English units. All of them are completely arbitrary.

[krispos42]

19. The English units may be arbitrary, but they were use-specific...

...and thus appropriate for the tasks that needed measuring way back in history.

An acre was the amount of land a man and an ox could till in a day. A furlong was the distance a team of oxen could pull without stopping. So an acre was typically one furlong long and one chain (22 yards) wide. If you had 20 acres to plow, you knew how long it would take.


:shrug:

It's not scientific, but it works on a practical level.

Another example is carpentry... it's easier to do some calculations using fractions than decimals, so having the fractions printed right on the tape measure is convenient.


Notice that with the fall of the oxen as our primary agricultural motive power, we only use miles and feet now.