would gravity exist if time stopped?

Please define the term "time" in this context.

Or the planet in kwestion.

Saturnus is quite funny.

As far as I know the two are part of the same "thing"; spacetime, so in the simplest view: no. If you want to get all brain-hurting and think about what happens at singularities you'll have to wait for the more qualified people like James Bond (who besides sucking Eva Green's fingers is also an experimental physicist).

Technically, if time stopped, nothing (as we know it) would exist because existence is confined within time.

Either that or I don't know what I'm talking about..... probably the latter. :downs:

Considering that we don't even know what exactly causes gravity, I don't think we can answer this question just yet...

Gravity is (essentially) a force; i.e. it causes masses to accelerate.

Acceleration is the second derivative of position with respect to time. Since you can't take a derivative with respect to nothing, acceleration cannot exist if time does not exist.

So I'd say that no, gravity does not exist if there is no time.

HOWEVER if you look at it from the perspective of gravity being a "dent" in the fabric of space-time, an outside observer to a universe where time has stopped would still see those "dents". They don't "do" anything (because to "do" something implies time), but they would still be there.

In conclusion, I have no idea.

Edit: vvvv yeah Jon`C said it more concisely

if a tree fell down in a forest


Gravity as a distortion of spacetime would exist. The consequences of gravity would not, which means gravity would be immeasurable. Furthermore, you would not exist to measure it.

Technically 'time' is just a creation of man. A measurement of how long things exist, or how long until they come to pass.

That's right, we invented time because getting old is so much fun.

I think my first reaction to this would be closely follwed by and then maybe a touch of :saddowns:

I like this.

As said previously we currently don't know what causes matter to have mass and a gravitational attraction. If the LHC finds what we hope, the Higgs particle, we'll have an explanation for matter having a mass.

The higgs works (from my understanding anyway) in such a way that the more massive a particle the greater the interaction between it and the Higgs Field.

Now, I'll admit, when I was doing the course on this stuff, I wasn't the most interested...well, thats wrong, I was interested, but after writing a 4 line long equation that derived it...I sorta began to switch off.... I'm an experimentalist dammit

The way I understand the Higgs Boson and the Higgs Field is two fold,

Firstly the Higgs Field exists in all places in the universe and at all times, so it is similar to Space-Time in that respect.

The Higgs boson is the particle that couples matter to this field, the stronger the interaction with the Higgs boson the move massive a chunk of matter will be. Some matter interacts more strongly with the higgs than others, where as other stuff doesn't interact at all, ie photons.

Now, theory wise I can't remember there being any time component in any of the equations that describe the Higgs potential, however for a potential to act, time needs to pass.

So as Jon'C said, I think the distortions in Space-Time would still be there, the coupling of matter to the higgs field would still be there, but nothing would happen if time stopped, as with most things.

(oh, time may be a creation of man, but we might as well just use a measure of entropy to describe 'time". It would make life a crap load more difficult but entropy and time are really one and the same. As the universe gets old entropy increases and vice versa as entropy decreases so would time. Having a "standard", linear, analogous quantity to entropy just makes life easier.

This is all fine until we figure out a way to reverse entropy, currently thought to be impossible btw, but I think in Stargate and Star Trek they managed it somehow...maybe through an "Entropy Compensator" or something :P...yay for Sci-Fi)

wibbly wobbly, timey wimey

big ball of wibbly.. wabbly.. timey wimey... stuff.

Also: fishstickz - I promise I won't bring up the time thing again.

so I guess it's impossible to 'stop time' (and kop_aoejedi I'm not talking about time as numbers).. cause if you did stop time the earth would not spin.. which would cause a lot of problems.

Who would care, if time is stopped no one can move anyways.

The earth failing to spin would be the least of our problems. Without the progression of time we might as well not exist, because nothing would happen. Potential would be infinite, but nothing would be acting.

Also, why wouldn't photons be attached to this huggs field? After all, gravity is able to influence light at extremely high levels (black hole). It may be an infinitesimal amount, but it would exist.

According to that episode of The Twilight Zone where that guy has a kind of stopwatch when time pauses gravity still works

If you could stop time and still somehow move around freely, you'd be blind. Although you'd be able to see gamma radiation once you started moving at around 9000 mph.

Also the earth not rotating wouldn't matter at all because the negative consequences would never, ever happen. Stopping time doesn't mean shedding all momentum instantly. Energy would still exist, it just wouldn't do anything.

of course it goes without saying

oh well I guess that sums up this discussion then

Time stopping is just another name for everything in the universe not moving

I should have worded what I said slightly different, the Higgs does couple to photons, in fact Higgs -> gamma gamma is one of the discovery channels for it at the LHC.

The coupling however is very small but at high energies/high masses, it's viewable as you say.

hm. maybe death is time stopping in individual segments.

... what?

That was so an "I'm high" comment, and i see that you know this. Well done!

I think he meant the way we measure time, not specifically time itself. At least I hope so.

The force exists, it just does an an infinitely small amount of work. (zero)

Would you exist if time stopped?

Uh, I just want to point out that gravity is not a force. If you think back to physics you were finding "the force on the object due to gravity"
Gravity wasn't the force, but it caused the force

D:

Wow.

What a retard.

aww, the love of massassi. so warm and fuzzy