Freezing Time

[exchemist]

I used to watch a show with my daughters called Charmed, where one of the characters had the ability to freeze time.

If, hypothetically, you had the ability to freeze time, what, if anything, do you think you could see?

This reminds me of that Monty Python sketch at the end of which a witch decides to cast a spell: "Turn everyone in this room into a chicken" [Cue sound of thunder, lots of white smoke.......then in the ensuing silence, as the smoke clears, revealing a room full of chickens].

........"Except me - Oh bugger!"

You would see nothing as you too would be frozen.

(But if you were personally exempt from that you would see darkness, because no photons would enter your eye as they would be frozen.)

 

[RestlessSoul]

I don't believe in multiple dimensions. But do think a photon depends upon and interacts with more than what we can experimentally observe. Something(s) hold they universe together and virtual particles suggest there is more than we are calculating.

Such as dark matter particles? They’re dark though, you definitely can’t see them…

 

[Onasander]

Light always travels at the speed of light, with reference to each observer. That’s the one constant in the universe. So even if time and motion slowed to almost nothing, light would be unaffected.



Such as dark matter particles? They’re dark though, you definitely can’t see them…

Maybe dark matter. Thing about dark matter is, it can be many things, if anything. Someone has, and will declare that they discovered proof of dark matter, and the only response to that is to shrug and start the search for it again.

I personally feel dark matter is a bit scammy. Bunch of atheists in physics denouncing God for not having any empirical proof of God, and then immediately jumped on board the mystic dark matter train. My stance is, if you are going to go looking for the stuff impossible to find, you better expect to search perpetually and find a whole lot of unelected things that fits your original definition, and that stuff is often gonna be unlike one another. We are dealing with the unknown.

 

[Revoltingest]

The Frozen Time phenomenon actually
occurred on the set of Police Squad.
In the second epilogue, at 2 minutes
the man arrested escapes because time
has stopped for the cops.

 

[SalixIncendium]

This reminds me of that Monty Python sketch at the end of which a witch decides to cast a spell: "Turn everyone in this room into a chicken" [Cue sound of thunder, lots of white smoke.......then in the ensuing silence, as the smoke clears, revealing a room full of chickens].

........"Except me - Oh bugger!"

You would see nothing as you too would be frozen.

(But if you were personally exempt from that you would see darkness, because no photons would enter your eye as they would be frozen.)

Wouldn't photons enter the eye as you moved thought them?

 

[RestlessSoul]

Maybe dark matter. Thing about dark matter is, it can be many things, if anything. Someone has, and will declare that they discovered proof of dark matter, and the only response to that is to shrug and start the search for it again.

I personally feel dark matter is a bit scammy. Bunch of atheists in physics denouncing God for not having any empirical proof of God, and then immediately jumped on board the mystic dark matter train. My stance is, if you are going to go looking for the stuff impossible to find, you better expect to search perpetually and find a whole lot of unelected things that fits your original definition, and that stuff is often gonna be unlike one another. We are dealing with the unknown.

Which reminds of Percy Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound, when the earth cries out to the sky;

“Heaven, hast though secrets? Man unveils me, I have none”

 

[Heyo]

I get it, but let's just assume for arguments sake, as in the show mentioned in the OP, that one could still move as the witches in the show did.

My guess is that if one was standing still, one would see nothing, as there is no way a photon could contact the retina, but if one was to begin moving into the photons then one would begin to see.

You have left the realm of reason and sanity the moment you think about magic. There is no use in contemplating rational consequences. Ex falso quadlibet.

 

[SalixIncendium]

You have left the realm of reason and sanity the moment you think about magic. There is no use in contemplating rational consequences. Ex falso quadlibet.

Sure there is. It's fun and intellectually stimulating.

But I see your point. I should go debate politics, because there that's much more useful and practical.