[tt] Charles Anderson: Imaginary Time--Not What You Think

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Imaginary Time--Not What You Think
http://deep-space-astronomy.suite101.com/print_article.cfm/imaginary_timenot_what_you_think

Suite101
Imaginary Time--Not What You Think
Author: Charles Anderson

Published: May 21, 2007

Contrary to what the phrase suggests, the concept of imaginary time
is not only valid, but also extremely useful in understanding the
space-time and the universe's origin

Stephen W. Hawking suggested that what scientists now call
imaginary time might be the true reality, while what everyone calls
real time might be only an invention to simplify describing the
universe. Hawking and another physicist, James B. Hartle, proposed
the idea as part of their attempt to describe the initial state of
the universe at the time of the Big Bang. Imaginary time has
nothing to do with fantasy or the ordinary definition of something
conjured up by one's imagination. It is a purely mathematical
concept used to try to explain the origin of the universe and
better comprehend the space-time continuum.
The term came from another mathematical idea--imaginary
numbers--which developed in the Sixteenth Century. Mathematicians
understood that a number multiplied by itself (2 x 2=4) produced
the square. The square root of a number led back to the original
number that was squared (the square root of 4 = 2). Since in
mathematics, negative numbers do exist, square roots of negative
numbers should be possible. However, there are no single numbers
that when squared will produce a negative number. The solution was
to call the square root of a negative number an imaginary number.
The square root of minus one is represented by the italics letter
i. The square root of larger numbers then became a real number
times i, for example the square root of -16 is 16i.
Hawking and Hartle were trying to understanding such things as what
came before the "Big Bang" at the beginning of the universe as well
as what laws were true at the beginning of time itself. By
combining Einstein's ideas about time and space (from the theory of
relativity) with the known laws of quantum physics, they developed
a mathematical description of space-time that used imaginary time.
While not proven, it seems to be a perfectly valid way of trying to
understand some conundrums in physics--most of all the Big Bang
Singularity. A singularity in terms of explaining the origins of
the universe refers to a point at which the space-time curvature
becomes infinite. Under the Big Bang theory, the beginning of the
universe was a Singularity.
This creates some difficulties when trying to understand what
happened before the beginning of the universe--what came before
time began. Hawking and Hartle proposed that instead of thinking
about singularities in ordinary time, they should be considered in
terms of imaginary time, which has no beginning or end. The result
would be that the Big Bang becomes just a point like the North Pole
on Earth, which does not actually begin anything. Therefore, it
does not make any sense to talk about some special time for the
beginning of time. The spatial point for the beginning of ordinary
time becomes instead a point in imaginary time.
Somehow, this makes it all clearer--doesn't it?