03. February 2019 photo & text – original by Diana
In the beginning, I was about to write today about something else! But time has played me a prank! It looks like we have sometimes too much time! Most of the time, however, is too little. Just as it happened to me right now, when I did not have enough time for the story I planned for today, because it is a bit longer and more complex than I thought. And because we’ve come to this topic, the time …
What is time? Have you ever asked this question? Does time really exist, or is just a convention? A convention to help us to sort and order the moments we experience every day.
How would you answer this question?
If someone had asked me some years ago, what do I think about time, I could have said: Time? Time is time! Simply; seconds, hours, days, years … we measure our actions and our life in time.
Now I realise that time is a chimaera, actually does not exist in the form I imagined!
Time is continuously present in our daily life, and something that everybody imagines they understand. However, a clear definition of time has proved to be remarkably tricky and elusive.
From a relativistic perspective, the past, the present and the future coexist, and from the perspective of life, there is only present. You are always living in “now,” in this moment, which is unique and inevitable, a moment that you can not escape.
In this context, I sought a definition of time. There are perhaps a hundred definitions, I chose the first one I found: “Time represents the indefinite and continuous progress of the existence and past events, present and future considered as a whole.” (Oxford Dictionary).
The scientists are saying; time began at Big Bang simultaneously with space as space-time fabric, time being the fourth dimension of space. There was no time or space before the Big Bang. Can you imagine this, a point where there is no space, and there is no time?
The point where the Big Bang began was called “initial singularity,” and the universe can be explained and mathematised only from this moment. There is no physical law and no mathematical concept that describes what was before the Big Bang and what was the cause that put the universe into existence.
The same point of singularity is also theorised in the centre of the black holes, where the physical laws of space-time texture cannot exist, implicitly no space and no time!
At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a great scientist who has shown that time has no fixed value but is relative. When you move, your movement is divided into four axes: three dimensions of space and a time dimension. Therefore, when travelling at high speed to an observer, your time comparing to him will be slower. But if you are at rest to this observer, then the whole movement happens in the dimension of time. Therefore, both being at rest, the time will flow at the same rate for both. If you are travelling at the speed of light, from the perspective of the observer who at rest, you are immortal! Still, you wouldn’t notice any difference! The passage of time will remain the same for you.
Time is an illusion!
Albert Einstein
What’s interesting is: your thought and imagination are not affected by the time the laws of physics. In your mind, you can do everything in no time! Only when you want to transform your thoughts and imagination into actions, you are compelled to consider space-time laws.
You have surely noticed, the sensation of time differs depending on what you are doing: when you have to wait, it’s like time expands, and minutes becomes years. On the contrary, when you do something exciting or passionate, the time contracts, and hours go like minutes.
Also for each of us, the time flows differently, and we can only agree for a certain point in time only when we consider the time measuring device, namely: the Almighty Clock!
The clock measures time with the precision of Cesium atom pulses. However, both the Cesium atom and the time measured by it remain undoubtedly under the law of relativity!
What can be measured in time is the accumulation of physical things and knowledge, accumulation of material and immaterial things, this stuff is ephemeral! What is above: YOU, your consciousness, this is eternal!
In connection with this topic of time and space, there are two excellent movies, in my opinion, that worth a watch: “Interstellar” (2014) and “Inception” (2010). These films inspired me and made me reanalyse the space-time concepts, I recommend specially for the fans of the SF genre.
These concepts may not be so hard to understand from a scientific point of view, but they remain theories until they come to your direct experience.
Only then you can say: “I got it!”
Time is like a spring that flows out of ourselves into the valley of life like water, not just in one direction, but in all directions around!
personal quote
As you have noticed, my writing experience is not very extensive; I’m just at the beginning! To be able to improve I need feedback from you. I would very appreciate, and it would help me a lot if you could spend a minute or two of your precious time, to leave a comment!
I thank you so much!