Is time infinitely divisible?

Question

Planck's time is only derived unit... but does that mean that time is not continuous, but rather segmented? Thus, would traveling near the speed of light (or just very fast) mean that the passage of each "segment" of time is "slowed down"? And exactly how fast does each segment of time pass anyway?

Answer 1

well if you really cannot get shorter than a planck time then i would say that yes, time is segmented. but i do not know what i am talking about at all. lol.

Answer 2

The Planck time is simply the shortest inverval that processes can occur in in principle. Nothing shorted can be measured, therefore, since a measurement is process. You can always suppose time can be subdivided in some metaphysical sense shorter than that, but you can never perform a measurement to demonstrate it, so it's not part of what physics deals with.

Answer 3

Yes, Planks time does imply that time is not continuous, but we already are aware that nothing else is continuous either, so perhaps it should not be a shock.

But you have fallen into a logical trap that many people have done regarding the speed of light situation and Special Relativity.

There is no preferred frame of reference regarding speed. If you think I am moving at near to the speed of light, and that my time and mass are dilated, I will see that YOU are traveling near to the speed of light and observe that your time and mass is dilated. Unless one of us accelerates enough to return to our starting point - and we get into the General Theory of Relativity -  we are faced with an unresolvable paradox: that both of us are correct, and logically, both if us cannot be correct.

In any case  both of us will experience our time and mass as being completely normal.

No one ever said that understanding our universe would be simple!

Answer 4

Time is continuous. The question that you are asking is very old and is part of Zeno's paradox.