From ground-breaking realities to calculating the end of time itself, here are 10 of the
craziest ways to explain time….
10.
The B Theory of Time
There’s a debate raging between time theorists, between those who subscribe to the ideas of
what is known as the A-theory, and those who believe in the B-theory.
The A-theory is what most of us think and experience in regards to time- that the past,
present, and future are linear and are fundamental to the nature of time itself… but B-theorists
don’t agree.
And you know how intense scientists can get about their debates!!
Instead, they believe that there is nothing metaphysically special about the concepts
of past and future times, and that time doesn’t actually flow at all.
They go as far to say that the passage of time is an illusion and that, at any point,
the past, present, and future are all equally real.
From our human perspective, we remember the past and look forward to the future, but never
the opposite way around.
B-theorists, however, think that this is simply a result of our knowledge- just because we
know more about the past than we do about the future…doesn’t mean that future events
are any less real than those in the past.
Rather than time being a progression, it all exists at once.
9.
The Higher You Are, The Quicker Time Passes
Einstein’s theory of relativity was a game changer for our explanations of the fundamental
processes that occur within the universe, but it’s the consequences that it had for
the understanding of time that are, perhaps, the most interesting.
He showed that gravity and time are inextricably linked.
Where there's a higher force of gravity, time moves slower- and vice versa.
This means that near the center of a black hole, time hardly moves at all, and in the
empty regions of space, time moves at a much faster speed.
The effect is so strong, that physicists think if you were caught in a black hole, you'd
actually see the Universe's entire existence flash before you, before you finally succumbed
to the crushing force of gravity.
On earth, this means that the higher you are, the faster you experience time.
Of course, these effects are minute and hardly have any impact on how we live.
If you lived a foot above someone else, for example, then in 79 years you would be 90
billionths of a second older.
This does become a practical issue on our human level, though, and becomes an effect
we need to understand for systems such as GPS.
It relies on satellites in orbit of the planet, where gravity is a quarter of that experienced
on the surface.
The clocks on these satellites go out of sync with those on earth by about 38 microseconds
per day- something that has to be regularly corrected or would result in very imprecise
location measurements.
8.
Time Travel MIGHT be Possible
Einstein’s theory also stated that the faster an object moves, the slower it experiences
time.
The theoretical maximum limit for this is the speed of light.
At this speed, time is at a stand-still.
While we see light from the other side of the universe that has taken billions of years
to reach us, from the photon’s point of view, this journey happens instantaneously.
This raises the question, then, of what happens if you break that barrier and can travel faster
than the speed of light.
Does this mean that time works in reverse, where cause and effect work in a different
direction to everything else in the Universe?
Some physicists think so, and even believe there’s a particle that exists in this strange
realm- known as a tachyon.
Tachyons have never been observed, and remain theoretical, but it would be virtually impossible
to spot them.
We wouldn’t be able to see them approach, because this would happen in the future, so
all we’d be able to see was the path they leave behind them before their arrival.
If we could, however, harness the power of a tachyon- it might just lead to the ability
to travel backward in time- clearly I am not a physicist, but I think we're a long way
from this becoming a possibility.
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7.
The Fourth Dimension
Our observation of everything around us gives the impression that we live in a 3-dimensional
space.
With an x,y, and z-axis, we can define the position and shape of any object, but what
if there was a fourth dimension that's yet to be discovered?
Well, many physicists think the fourth dimension has been clear to us all along.
What is it?
Time itself.
It plays a crucial role in the mathematical formulations of physical laws and theories
such as the theory of relativity, and string theory, and gives a way to define not just
where an object is, but when it is in a particular place too.
Say, for example, you were charting your movements through the day- it would make sense to note
down the coffee shop you visited, along with the time you were there, the gym, the amount
of time you spent there, and at work, and eating dinner and so on.
This is essentially treating time as a fourth dimension, and while there are arguments why
it shouldn’t be classified as such, it works in the vast majority of cases.
What do you think?
Is it the 4th?
Or should we keep looking??
6.
Father Time
Without their understanding of quantum physics or the realization of the theory of relativity,
the Greeks had their own ways to understand time- which treated it as a surprisingly fluid
concept.
One of the original Titan gods, Cronos, was the God of Agriculture and the destructive
forces of time- often being referred to as ‘Father Time’.
He wielded powers such as temporal stasis, temporal deceleration, temporal looping, and
the ability to steal time from people.
They also had another God named Chronos, who was the primordial god of time- which shows
how important a concept it was to them.
While they didn’t understand time to the level that we do, which itself is by no means
comprehensive, they were already toying with the idea that it wasn’t a pervasive constant,
and is something that can be manipulated in various ways.
Pretty cool to think about right?
5.
The Specious Present
The phrase ‘Specious Present' first became used in the late 1800s as a way to describe
the period of time in which we exist, with William James defining it as the way that
we are always aware of a certain duration, be it a few seconds to no more than a minute,
and that this is the original intuition of time.
There are a number of ways in which you can look at the specious present: as the time-span
of your short-term memory, the amount of time which we perceive as being instantaneous,
the duration of what we directly perceive, or the duration that is perceived as both
present and extended in time.
What this means, in simple terms, is that the Specious Present is an attempt to define
the meaningful experience of time for each of us- outside of the wider concepts of what
it is.
There's no denying that we interpret our surroundings in linear time- that there's a cause and an
effect, but philosophers and psychologists have long struggled to define what's ‘in
the moment'.
Their argument is that the only measure of time that really matters to us, is that which
we can affect, in other words, the time that we currently exist in.
We can learn from the past, and aim for things in the future, but beyond that, those concepts
don't really affect us as much as the present does.
That’s why it’s important to live in the moment!!
4.
Quantum Gravity Theories
The realm of Quantum Physics is an exciting and, in many ways, illogical one- so quantum
gravity theories are an attempt to combine the theories of quantum mechanics with the
theory of relativity.
This is by no means a completed idea, but the main principles involve suggesting that
time is not a fundamental building block of the physical world.
Instead, these theories regard time as an ‘emergent’ phenomenon, one that isn't
captured within equations that explain existence, but still happens anyway- almost in a similar
way to how weather affects your drive to work.
It isn't integral to the functioning or process of your car but still is able to affect the
performance.
Quantum gravity says that time doesn’t exist in any meaningful way at all.
Whether this is the truth, or simply a way to allow quantum physics and the theory of
relativity to exist alongside each other until a better explanation comes along- no one is
entirely sure, but it’s a fascinating area of research for those interested in the fundamental
truths.
3.
McTaggart’s Argument
The idea of time being non-existent is a particularly new one.
The philosopher J.M.E McTaggart published a notorious paper in 1908, in which he argued
that there’s no such thing as time at all.
What??
Stay with me now and I’ll try to explain it!!
He began by explaining that there are two ways in which we can order time.
The first, he said, was ordering events in terms of their properties- such as ‘two
days in the future', ‘present', or ‘one day in the past'- things he referred to as
the ‘A series'.
He then went on to define the ‘B series', in which events were ordered by two-place
relations such as ‘two days earlier than’, ‘simultaneous with’, or ‘three days
later than’.
So compared to other things basically.
He went on to argue that the ‘B series' does not constitute as a proper time series,
because they are always fixed, and he saw change as being essential to time.
He saw the A series as being essential to time, but he said it was contradictory because
no time can be both future and past, for example.
Despite being able to say that the past was, at some point, the future, he argued that
this re-labeling just creates further contradictions and, so, the only solution is that time doesn't
exist.
I think he may have even confused himself at this point!!
Important to note is that philosophers, like McTaggart, realize how paradoxical this sounds,
but that the evidence seems to suggest that the temporal order to things is, in fact,
an illusion too.
It’s all an illusion folks!!
But you probably already knew that!!
2.
We Never Exist in the Present
Our experience of the world is dictated by what our brains perceive, but with so much
information being collected at all times, it takes huge processing power to analyze
everything.
That's why our brains purposefully ignore what they deem to be irrelevant stimuli and,
amazingly, have the ability to re-write the past to fill in the gaps!!
There are a number of experiments that are used to prove this, and they raise the question
of when does our consciousness actually exist- is it in the present, or slightly in the past?
Take, for example, if you were to tap both your nose and your foot at the same time.
Now, you will feel them in precisely the same moment- but it takes longer for the signal
to reach your brain from your foot than it does from your nose.
It turns out that your brain presents information to you in the best way possible for you to
understand it, not necessarily in real-time to how events happen.
This also means that we’re existing slightly behind the present, so our brains can build
the picture of what we will perceive.
We're talking micro-fractions of a second here, but it shows how our perception of time
might well be very different to its true nature.
1.
The End of Time
Finally, perhaps the craziest theory of time of all is that one day, it will cease to exist
entirely.
Which is what some physicists believe at least.
(Obviously not the ones who are arguing time doesn’t exist anyway- and I’m not counting
the philosophers here).
Astrophysicists who observe the universe expanding can see it continually accelerating and, presumably,
continuing on like this forever.
This process, known as eternal inflation, causes issues, though, when trying to calculate
the probability of certain events taking place.
Take, for example, when they try to predict the nature of Cosmic Microwave Background.
To determine the probability of something happening, you calculate the number of observations
of the CMB along with the number of times what you’re looking for happens.
BUT, if the number of observations are infinite, as is the case if time goes on forever, then
how can you calculate probabilities- and what's even the point?
Each event, that doesn't have a probability of zero, will, therefore, happen an infinite
number of times, so how do you distinguish those events from any other?
The solution some researchers have come to is that time itself will end.
In five different scenarios, they came to the conclusion that there's nearly a 50 percent
chance that it will finish within 3.7 billion years and a nearly 50 percent chance that
it will end within 3.3 billion years.
There's also a slight chance that it will end within 1 second, so if this theory is
right, things could change drastically for us all.
It’s not time to panic yet, though, because the researchers themselves admit there are
other ways to resolve the theoretical problems caused by endless time- either way, none of
us will be around for when it happens, so you’d better still set that alarm clock
for tomorrow morning!
Thanks for watching!
You made it until the end and your time here was well spent- even though it is all just
an illusion!
Be sure to subscribe before you go and I’ll see you soon!!
Byeeee