Fractal nature of time

[stereoman]

  I apologize, my english isn´t really good, let´s try.
  What about the fractal nature of time?
  We know that a year is a standard time measure, but we see months , weeks and days, too, all natural time periods.
  This lies on cosmic motion, and we know that the sun himself is moving too, around Sirius, I think, this means that there are also bigger natural  time divisions.
   This all means for me that time has a fractal nature, time is geometry, if time is geometry, theres no start and no end.
   I´m really lost?
   I would like to hear your viewpoints.

[Tglad]

Maybe you're about right. Time is often considered geometry, e.g. 'the geometry of space-time' where both can warp and bend.
The year, month, days etc are orbital periods, which increase with size, and since there is a (perhaps fractal) spread of sizes, it follows that there are a range of orbital periods.

[ker2x]

i don't see anything fractal-ish in time.
Having different words to define different duration of an event doesn't change anything

if time is geometry, theres no start and no end. <- what ?  

PS : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_units

[David Makin]

i don't see anything fractal-ish in time.
Having different words to define different duration of an event doesn't change anything

if time is geometry, theres no start and no end. <- what ?  

PS : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_units

Personally I do not believe in "time" as a "dimension" - I would say it is simply the consequence and/or definition of change/s of state (the change/s of state probably being analogous to iteration or rather iterations - many separate simultaneous and asynchronous ones).
Under that model/definition then the nature of time is most definitely fractal-related
If that's the case then you may ask - "Then what's the 4th dimension ?" and I'd say unnamed but most definitely related to mass/gravity etc. and probably analogous to the normal 3 spatial dimension such that a "rotation" causes conversion of mass <-> energy......
But then again I'm not a physicist - in fact I never got any formal qualifications beyond "A" level However my 2nd cousin did point me at a paper along the above lines but it was a little "above his head" and he's a fundamental particle physicist currently studying electron clouds so I didn't spend much time trying to decipher it

[Alef]

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

In physics, the Planck mass (mP) is the unit of mass in the system of natural units known as Planck units.

The Planck mass is approximately the mass of the Planck particle, a hypothetical minuscule black hole whose Schwarzschild radius equals the Planck length.

Unlike all other Planck base units and most Planck derived units, the Planck mass has a scale more or less conceivable to humans. It is traditionally said to be about the mass of a flea, but more accurately it is about the mass of a flea egg.

So planck mass is not smallest possible mass.

[cKleinhuis]

i thought plank is the name for the smallest time interval?

[asimes]

I am not a physicist, but I think it Planck is the name of a few things. I didn't know it applied to mass, but the ones I knew of where length and time. Anything smaller than the planck length doesn't really make sense anymore (chaotic space?) and the same applies to time (smallest unit of time that  still makes sense?).

[asimes]

http://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae281.cfm

[taurus]

the idea behind the three basic planck units (mass, time, length) is, to unify the three units. all planck units are products or quotients of powers of  the reduced planck constant, the gravitational constant and the speed of light. setting theese constants to 1 makes it possible to express all three units with one unified unit for example eV.

the planck units (maybe except mass - it's pretty big) represent the lower limit of reasonable evidence. this does not meaen that there is no sense below - we only can't say anything about.
in quantum field theories, everything below those units is full of unpredictable fluctuations, which can be seen as some sign of "fractalish" structure, but this can also be due to the assumption of infinitely small (0-dimensional) particles. in string theories, where particles are made of 1-dimensional strings, those fluctuations do not occur. (see brian greene "the elegant universe" for a very vivid description)

[stereoman]

Maybe you're about right. Time is often considered geometry, e.g. 'the geometry of space-time' where both can warp and bend.
The year, month, days etc are orbital periods, which increase with size, and since there is a (perhaps fractal) spread of sizes, it follows that there are a range of orbital periods.

To me, it´s an evidence, any observable phenomena has a cyclic nature, and cyclic means recursive.
There´s strong evidence that ancient cultures understood the fractal nature of time.
 Ancient people had a vital need of knowing when rains will come to their countries, I don´t know about native americans, but is well know that natives around the world guide themselves trough cyclic time.
  That´s why they create the Zodiac, the most impressive human achievement, imagine a clock with seven needles, and each position of each needle has  a definite meaning related to weather, I know, it sounds strange, but there´s still in the spanish market an annual prediction of weather done 1 year in advance,this prediction it´s always correct and it´s based in Astrology, even if the founder was astronomer.
    Peolple that lives in the country  uses the first 12 days of August to have a glimpse of the next 12 months, in south america they use the first 12 days of January, this is based in the idea of fractal time.

[David Makin]

this does not meaen that there is no sense below - we only can't say anything about.

at the moment

[stereoman]

Personally I do not believe in "time" as a "dimension" - I would say it is simply the consequence and/or definition of change/s of state (the change/s of state probably being analogous to iteration or rather iterations - many separate simultaneous and asynchronous ones).
Under that model/definition then the nature of time is most definitely fractal-related
If that's the case then you may ask - "Then what's the 4th dimension ?" and I'd say unnamed but most definitely related to mass/gravity etc. and probably analogous to the normal 3 spatial dimension such that a "rotation" causes conversion of mass <-> energy......
But then again I'm not a physicist - in fact I never got any formal qualifications beyond "A" level However my 2nd cousin did point me at a paper along the above lines but it was a little "above his head" and he's a fundamental particle physicist currently studying electron clouds so I didn't spend much time trying to decipher it

Any thing has width, length,  height and time, if things had not an extension in time, they should dissapear, so, time is a dimension, moreover, the mentioned dimensions are interchangeable, this means that they are of the same nature, geometry.
   You can say that the next village is  at a distance of 1 hour, or 1 km., time and space are interchangeable.
   Maybe you know Pulfrich movies, these can be viewed in relief only by placing a dark filter in front of an eye, what happens is that light speed is reduced in the darkened eye, creating a discrepancy between the images received by each eye,thus creating the stereoscopycal effect, what has happened is that time has become space.

[Syntopia]

Just a comment: the Planck units does not mean that time or space is quantized or made discrete. Positions are not restricted to a high resolution grid, and time does not proceed in small steps. At least not according to the two main theories that define modern physics: general relativity (which describes gravity) and the standard model (a quantum field theory describing all other forces). Here time and space form a continuum. Several theories have been put forth suggesting a discrete and quantised spacetime, but there is no experimental support for any of them.

So I think it is safe to say that nothing suggests that time or space exhibit an intrinsic fractal structure.

Of course an object or phenomenon might display fractal properties in space or time. For instance, I could imagine a audio waveform showing self-similarity over many different time scales.

[stereoman]

i don't see anything fractal-ish in time.
Having different words to define different duration of an event doesn't change anything

if time is geometry, theres no start and no end. <- what ?  

PS : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_units

I mean that if time is geometry, the BigBang theory and a lot of associated concepts are purely imaginary, just like Plank units

[stereoman]

  Fractal nature of time is what justifies  old sayings like Bible´s " Wheels inside wheels" can anyone give a better description of fractal cicles?
  the other is "As above, so is below" pure fractal thinking.