Does Yesterday Have Mass?

[Gallstones]

Hiya Stoney

Who told you?


God you look smashing in that cardigan.

[Gallstones]

Getting serious.

Time alone can not have mass.

I'm right aren't I?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Getting serious.

Time alone can not have mass.

I'm right aren't I?

You were yesterday.

[Gallstones]

Today has mass and I can weigh things in the present to confirm their mass. But do things in the past have mass now? Does yesterday have mass?

Today--a point in time; a full 24 hour portion?--has mass?
I don't think so.

Things have mass, a point in time is not a thing. What dimensions has it to contain this mass? What volume is it? Mass occupies space as well as time. Time isn't even energy.

When you measure the things that exist today, you are measuring their mass, not the mass of the day. The day has no mass. Objects of mass experience the day--experience time.

[Gallstones]

Getting serious.

Time alone can not have mass.

I'm right aren't I?

You were yesterday.

• 

[Brian Peacock]

Time weights for no-one.

[Gallstones]

Time weights for no-one.

I knew I was right.

[Toontown]

Is that a stupid way of asking if yesterday still exists?

If Hawkinge-like imaginary time exists, then yesterday still exists in imaginary time. But that wouldn't mean any particular timeless moment of imaginary time would have mass. The manifestation of mass requires change, i.e., normal time. The manifestation of normal time, in turn, requires movement through the timeless moments of which imaginary time is constructed. Imaginary time, for it's part, does not manifest change, but simply preserves each moment of normal time. IOW, time may have two arrows, pointing in perpendicular directions, so to speak.

Does that answer your stupid question?

[Atheist-Lite]

Is that a stupid way of asking if yesterday still exists?

If Hawkinge-like imaginary time exists, then yesterday still exists in imaginary time. But that wouldn't mean any particular timeless moment of imaginary time would have mass. The manifestation of mass requires change, i.e., normal time. The manifestation of normal time, in turn, requires movement through the timeless moments of which imaginary time is constructed. Imaginary time, for it's part, does not manifest change, but simply preserves each moment of normal time. IOW, time may have two arrows, pointing in perpendicular directions, so to speak.

Does that answer your stupid question?

No, it was a very good try.

[apophenia]

Well, being a physics midget, I guess I'd have to ask two questions.

1) Is mass a thing or property, or is it a relationship, a functional description of arcs in the worldline of space-time?

2) What do you mean by "yesterday" -- are you referring to a contiguous segment of a four dimensional space-time manifold, or a collection of moments -- whatever they are -- or the integral of the existences of the space-time manifold over a range of values?

(In line with #2, are you postulating that points in time exist or that there is such a thing as an instantaneous mass (not to be confused
with the standard term, but rather, does mass have a definition independent of the passage of time?))

(Well. I thought it sounded clever while I was writing it out. )

[MiM]

NOOO!!! Are you implying that all my weight loss is meaningless?

[Brian Peacock]

NOOO!!! Are you implying that all my weight loss is meaningless?

I think it depends on how fast you're travelling.