There have been quite a few of these abstract time threads recently. I recently encountered the concept of "imaginary time" as opposed to "real time". Some guy's giving lectures about quantum stuff in relation to earth sciences at uni, one of which that caught my attention is called:
"The equivalence between classical diffusion processes and quantum dynamics in imaginary-time: the Fokker-Planck equation."
Does anybody know anything about imaginary time? I've encountered the use of complex numbers in seismics, to explain evanescent surface waves formed by super critical waves at a free surface. The concept seemed very strange and I gave up trying to understand as anything more than mathematics for the sake of convenience. I would appreciate it if anyone could give some precious insight into the physics of the imaginary plane - preferrably a qualitative insight if such a thing exists.
Perhpas you've encountered it in other fields too??
Cheers