If I drive my car through a corner slowly I’ll be fine. If I go fast, the car will skid off the road. All the materials are the same, the execution is the same. The only difference is over what amount of time this happens? The example is not important, the same goes for pretty much anything. Filling a bottle, ripping a sheet of paper..
I understand this from a intuitive perspective, but I wonder if someone can explain why time matters in physics in a simple way. What is the fundamental difference between doing something fast vs. slow.
I’m sure this is a silly question if you know some thermal dynamics or special relativity, but remember, I’m only 5!
In: Physics
Good answers but not really ELI5s. Here’s my shot at it:
Stuff happens, things change. Time is just a way of describing how those changes are connected.
Now, why does time matter in physics? Because time only goes one way. Lots of things can happen in different directions but not time. It only goes one way. It’s called the arrow of time. One way to know the direction of time is that over time, things break. If you drop a glass, it only shatters, never shards of glass reforming. Your room only gets messy, it never cleans itself. This is called entropy or the amount of order or disorder in a system. With time, things tend to become disordered, not the other way around.
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