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TC ; DU : Modelling time as 2 dimensional helps predict some previously poorly understood properties of light at nano scale.
( TC ; DU stands for Too Complicated ; Didn't Understand )
Imo they should be using 'complex' rather than 'imaginary'.
anyone with physics understanding please reply with wether this is BS, or very creative description of something boring.
I don't have a physics understanding but Im learning to be a scientist. It's basically light enters a material and can have a delay(no shit) but they can't figure out why. Imaginary time is this delay but it's probably just scattering.
It's even simpler 'It is easier to math the delay when you restrict it to 2 dimensions'
The headline is pure sensationalism and shouldn't be in this sub
Popularmechanics seems to lean heavily on the 'popular' side.
And the article was shit.
And the article was shit
Fucking thank you this is sensationalist bullshit for a physics shorthand that has been used since before color tv
Yeah, it's Jeremy Berimy obviously
article: "imaginary time is not imaginary like the tooth fairy..."
headline: "Scientists Measured ... Time That Shouldn’t Exist"
Pretend my username is an accurate description of me, could someone please explain wtf they're talking about?
The math for angles is easier if you use less dimensions
I don't know how to explain dimensions to a ssabmud
But the math for 2 is easier than the math for 3
So scientists pretend it's happening in 2
They've used this trick in other places like rockets
Me aged 16 having imaginary numbers taught. It simultaneously made sense but didn't. Thankfully our maths teacher laughed with us at our jaw drops.
let's be honest.
they could have called it complex numbers and it would save the teachers a lot of questions.
I think you may be unaware of how majestically terrible mathheads are at naming things
if they were good with words they wouldn't be doing maths
Feynman was good with both...
Yeah "imaginary" isn't a good name and doesn't convey what they are. No one is learning about imaginary numbers before being familiar with the Cartesian plane, they're literally just another number line perpendicular to the reals. Ironically, one could call them "normal" numbers for that reason. But really any synonym for "perpendicular" would be better than "imaginary". I think "orthogonal numbers" has a nice ring to it.
Is this site owned by Quanta Magazine or something? That article was basically "imaginary time—it's just like the imaginary number "i" !1!! Poggers!"
Instead, “imaginary time” is defined as a length of time that can be multiplied by the square root of -1,
Is this actually the definition? This is just "which numbers are divisible by 4" "all of them, you jut might get ¼, ½, or ¾." but in reverse, no?
Imaginary numbers are defined as the square roots of negative numbers, or as multiples of i, so yes that definition of imaginary time is accurate.
The square roots of negative numbers are different because they are neither rational nor irrational numbers, so they can be combined with real numbers to form complex numbers. Complex numbers are vital to mathematics because they allow you to solve polynominal equations that can't be solved with real numbers alone, like (x+1)^2 =-9 where x = -1±3i
Yes. I know. I still don't know what imaginary time actually means.
It's only relevant at quantum scales, so it's not something we can experience directly. The super oversimplified version is that imaginary time is what light is doing while it moves through a medium where it can't travel at light speed. Light always travels at light speed, but it can pass through infinitessimally small closed loops of time where the light isn't interacting with anything but is nevertheless delayed by things it might have interacted with.
That Truro was elected a second time was beyond my imagination, we are living in imaginery time /s