ABSTRACT
Due to the difficulties met by modern science in handling materials’ changes and the practical need to resolve problems involving irregular events and information, in this chapter we will address the problem of time, including what time is, where time is located, whether or not time occupies a material dimension, etc. Then, combined with practical experiences, we will analyze the differences between events and quantities and those between material dimensions and parametric dimensions, and consider such a problem as the quantification of time. The analysis below indicates that modern physics is mainly a theory about quantitative physical quantities and parametric dimensions, which inevitably has to be a science that cannot really foretell what is forthcoming, combined with all the weaknesses of quantities. Our analysis shows that realistic materials, events, and information are not the same as quantities, and the transformation principle of materials and events does not follow the formal logical calculus of quantities. With practical evidence, it can be seen that the methods of structural transformation of events can shed light on problems regarding transformations of materials and events. This chapter is based on OuYang and Lin (in press a).
