a thought experiment with time

< give me time to work!!!! | journal for 11-Jul-2007 >

Thursday, July 5. 2007

Here is a thought experiment that I was trying out today.

Question

Assume that we are in a society where there is no concept of time. You have to meet a friend. How do you two sync up so that you can meet each other. Remember that you do not have a concept of time, hence you cannot tell him 'meet me below the fourth coconut tree at 3 PM today'.

Answer (one of the many)

One answer that I think might be feasible is that you tell your friend that you will let off a firecracker (or some signaling device) when you leave your home and you will let off a firecracker after every 500 meters.

Applications of this problem

How do ants sync up between themselves ? i.e. how do they decide 'this is the time the house owner makes tea and spills some milk on the counter'

Posted by Raj Shekhar at 18:14 | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)

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Ants go out to forage food when they r extremely hungry, they eat together and mostly are of same sizes (unlike humans who r slim/flat/), so they r likely to get hungry at the same time

#1 Swaroop (Homepage) on 2007-07-09 11:24 (Reply)

@Swaroop - I gave a bad problem

#1.1 Raj Shekhar (Homepage) on 2007-07-11 04:50 (Reply)

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