The physical nature of time. Works by Nikolai Kozyrev

I am reading the work of the Soviet astrophysicist Nikolai Kozyrev (1908-1983) “Causal or asymmetric mechanics in linear approximation”. Publishing House of the Main Astronomical Observatory of the USSR Academy of Sciences, Pulkovo, 1958.

The paper presents Kozyrev’s views on the problem of time and its physical nature. Experimental confirmations of the theory of physical time are given. The properties, energy characteristics and symmetry of the time flow are considered. In experiments to detect the effects of physical time, Kozyrev used specially sensitive devices designed by him, torsion scales.

This is a pioneering work. Before Kozyrev, no one delved into the physical nature of time. As for professional physicists, Time for them has always remained Newton’s time, i.e. absolute time, a great Something, a tool and a gift of Nature for the convenience of calculations and the formulation of laws. In the everyday aspect, it is a ticking clock, a pendulum – back and forth-back and forth – walking on the wall in the hut of O.Nicodemus of der.Peredreevo.

Let’s try to understand Kozyrev’s constructions. To begin with, the statement of the problem: and why is it necessary to study the physical nature of time, what is so practical here? Well, time and time. It’s flowing, yes, well, you’re welcome, Mr Time. And God give you, Time, health and a good bride…, – said O.Nicodemus, getting off the stove, scratching his beard and rolling a cigarette. Answering this ‘far from simple question’, we note that there is the work of armies of scientists and laboratories, there is a career of a research scientist, there is an ‘assault on the depths of the universe’, there is scientific planning, there are state programs of priority areas in science and technology, etc., etc., and there is also a healthy human curiosity, which often enters into a clinch with all these, of course, very important and necessary things including beautiful dolls listed above.

So, about Time – out of curiosity – and even before it entered the clinch with priority directions –>

In the 1st chapter “Astrophysical introduction” Kozyrev writes

The world sparkles with an inexhaustible variety, we do not find in it any traces of approaching thermal and radioactive death. Apparently, here lies the main contradiction – a very deep contradiction that cannot be eliminated by references to the infinity of the universe. The fact is that not only individual astronomical objects, but even entire systems are so isolated from each other that they can be considered as closed systems. For them, heat death should be noticeably closer before, than help from the outside will have time to come. Such degraded states of systems should be predominant, but at the same time they are almost invisible. Remaining within the framework of the usual laws of mechanics and physics, it remains to be assumed that the observed picture of the World is either the result of one vast catastrophe that once encompassed the whole World, or the consequence of small, constantly occurring catastrophes that renew the World.

According to Kozyrev, the world of the observable universe contradicts the 2nd law of thermodynamics, according to which, sooner or later, thermal death must occur in a closed system with continuously increasing entropy. Kozyrev says “No!” the heat death of the universe. Such a conclusion follows from a simple fact: if the 2nd law of thermodynamics were strictly observed in the universe, then its thermal death would have already occurred. But this is not observed. This means that there is an internal invisible source of energy in the universe that prevents its degradation. According to Kozyrev, this source is Time. It does not allow the world to disappear, Time continuously feeds the world and reproduces it. The world is trying to disappear, but Time prevents it. Hence, probably, this mention of catastrophes renewing the world in Kozyrev’s text.

In the 2nd chapter “The main provisions of causal mechanics and kinematic consequences” Kozyrev writes:

It should be expected that the course of time in our World is determined by some universal constant of a certain sign. With a different course of time, this constant must be different and may even have a different sign. The course of time must be determined with respect to some invariant. It follows from our axioms that the course of time can be determined with respect to space. Indeed, from the comparison of the second and fourth axioms, we conclude that the future and the past are always separated by an arbitrarily small, but not equal to zero space interval. Thus, the direction of time can be defined as a direction in space. From the provisions of the third and fourth it follows that the difference between the future and the past tends to zero at . This means that there is a connection between δt and δx, which, if small enough, should have the form:

δt = 1/c2 (δx)

Let’s explain by example what this ratio means. Let’s say we push the ball, apply force, the ball starts moving. In motion , the ball passes the distance δx . The time interval between the cause (push, use of force) and the effect (movement of the ball in space from the reference point to the position +δx) is equal to δt .

The consequence, by definition, always follows the cause. The cause is in the past, the effect is in the future, but not before the cause. The movement from cause to effect goes from the past to the future for a (non-finite) interval δt. Kozyrev’s statement boils down to the fact that there must be a relationship between spatial displacement and temporal displacement, see the formula above, with a constant 1/c2, where c2 is the rate of signal transmission from cause to effect.

This is the speed of the time flow – a physical, kinematic model of Time. What is the saturation of this signal? It is saturated with physical time.

While it’s a bit murky with the physical nature, but formally, everything is logical.

Cause and effect are not combined in space and in time, where they are separated by the intervals δx and δt. Cause and effect are not simultaneous, otherwise there would be no cause and effect. Let’s apply the methodology of verbiage that has already been tested many times. Let’s forget the term “time” for a while and formulate it this way: the gap between cause and effect is the tension between two states of an object in space-time that has its own energy. If this energetic tension did not exist, then cause and effect would be combined, that is, nothing would happen. But it’s happening!

If there is energy, then there must be mass. The main question remains open – how can this gap between the two states be saturated materially? If something is moving (in this case, time, so the ball tends to the pocket) with a finite velocity of 1/c2, then this movement, the flow, must have a material carrier.

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Photo: https://www.nature.com/news/the-quest-to-crystallize-time-1.21595