It's been a while...

Well, as one can become bored when awaiting the end of a long bout of mathematically induced procrastination, I was thinking that I needed something with which to occupy myself, when it came to my attention that it had been a considerable while since I had waxed philosophical. No moar! This post officially starts what is hoped to be a (minimally) tri-weekly posting schedule. Specifically, I will attempt to post every Tuesday, Friday, and once a weekend. (My schedule is rather mutable, so cut me some slack.)
Now, onto today's topic:
Time.

"Chipping away
At the hours that make up a dull day..."

Pink Floyd aside, though, time is one of the most interesting subjects possible; and I do not mean that lightly-- I spend most weekdays in the company of Roy Weber (known to most as Ray), Subzero, and Suth. And, in terms of real interesting, Vonnegut, Hemingway, and Descartes.
So, this concept of time-- what makes it so cool? In brief, we don't know that it is real.

Let me reiterate.

We don't know whether or not time exists.

Let me elaborate. We are able to use the hands of a clock to accurately tell the hour, minute, and second, but we are not actually able to measure time. After all, what is a clock measuring? The rate of rotation of the gears; the amount of power coursing through the wires; to exponentiate, the rotation of the Earth around the Sun. Really, we have no real way of measuring time itself. This is sort of an abstract concept. Let me try to be more clear--
Imagine a ball floating in a chamber with no influences-- no atmosphere, no other particles, no momentum. Look at this orb floating, with no time passing. No observe it for one full hour. What changes? Absolutely nothing.

What throws an interesting light on this is quantum physics--specifically, the idea that observing a particle changes it. If this is true, then time might be measurable only if it is being measured-- which is sort of a conundrum.

This is far from a complete discussion-- but please, post with thoughts.