The existence of time is something that has been scientifically studied and debated for many years.
For most of us, time exists in the way that we have standing appointments for things such as work or school. Everything we encounter usually has a starting time and an ending time. Have you ever wondered if time is something man just made up? It’s for these reasons that OnlineClock.net now asks the very timely question…
…Does time really exist, or is it just an invention?
If anyone is truly qualified to keep an eye on the actual existence of time, it would be Ferenc Krauscz. In his lab, located in Garching, Germany, he has measured the shortest time intervals ever recorded. His method is to track extremely brief quantum leaps of electrons with atoms. If this method is not accurate enough for you, there is a temporal method known as the planck scale. Even clock ticks are considered slow in comparison to the planck scale measurement. The planck scale measures distances so short that within it, time and space start to break down. The length of a planck is so small that if you would compare it with a proton, the proton would look as large as Rhode Island. If you can wrap your mind around the fact that time and space can break down using a planck scale measurement, the debate as to whether or not time exists is again open for new arguments, despite the earlier theory of Albert Einstein.
- How are YOU weighing these days on the Planck Scale?!
New Debates over the Existence of Time
The effort to understand time and the existence of time has led to a strange link to physics.
The issue discussed in physics is that time may not exist in a fundamental, real way. If this is true, than what exactly is time and why do we encounter and use time in our own experience?
Carlo Rovelli, a physicist at the University of the Mediterranean in Marsielle, France says that time is an issue that theorists have been confused about. Rovelli has stated: “The best way to think about quantum reality is to give up the notion of time, and to realize that the fundamental description of the universe must be timeless.”
A sizable minority of physicists, Rovelli included, believe that physics will eventually describe a universe that has no time. The possibility that time does not exist is known among Rovelli and his peers in physics as “the problem of time.” Another big question the physicists are discussing is: “Why does time always point to the future?” All current physics laws, whether they belong to Newton or Einstein, or even the quantum rules, would work equally as well if time could run backward. As far as any physicist can tell, time is a one-way process that never reverses, even though there are no laws that restrict time.
Seth Lloyd, a quantum mechanical engineer at MIT, thinks that the usual explanation that time only runs forward is that in order to specify what happens to any system, you have to identify an initial or final condition. This describes a beginning and an end. We will probably never have that information, since time is currently described as a continuum as well as being infinite.
Big Bang physicists describe the universe starting very simply, as an extremely tiny compact ball of energy. Even though the laws of physics fail to give us an arrow of time, the universe and its ongoing expansion does. As the universe expands, it becomes more complex and disorderly. This is called an increase in entropy. This increase may be the actual origin that gives us the ceaseless forward march of time.
If we look at time in this way, it is not something that exists separate from the universe. There isn’t a ticking clock outside of the cosmos. Most of us think of time as an absolute, flowing in a natural way, without the thought of any external thing causing it to happen. Contrary to what Newton believed, clocks do not measure something that is apart from the universe. Actually, clocks don’t really measure time at all. I know that is confusing, and it shouldn’t stop you from setting your alarm for work tomorrow, but it is what is being discussed among scientific academics these days.
- Carlo Rovelli, Time Theorist
Towards A Timeless Universe
Carlo Rovelli is the biggest advocate for the idea of a timeless universe. Rovelli says that we never actually see time. We only see clocks. He believes that we only see the hands of clocks, but not time itself. This is true, even though we are guilty of claiming that “time flies.” The hands of a clock are a physical variable, therefore we cheat by what we are really observing, which is a clock representing the idea of time.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, CO actually agrees with Rovelli, stating: “Our clocks do not measure time; no time is defined to be what our clocks measure.” They further state: “The clocks define the time standards for the globe.” So in essence, time is defined by the number of clock movements.
According to Rovelli, we represent things as evolving in time, when in fact, we are actually representing things as evolving through the ticks of clocks. Thinking about this, we make ourselves early or late for the beginning of anything. Did we make this time thing up ourselves? It seems that way after reading Rovelli and the statements from the NIST.
Rovelli says that an explanation of past and future are best attributable to causality. Rovelli states: “We do see into the future to some extent and we do see into the past to some extent. For instance, if I throw a ball, I know it will hit the door.” He further goes on to explain that if he sees a picture of a ball at a later time, he will remember it and that image will offer him a glimpse of what we perceive as the past. To Rovelli, human perception is the most dominant factor in the way we interpret time. Therefore, future events would become the past at some point, while the past, at some stage in time, was also the future.
The past, present and future ME...you too?
The thought of time not actually existing may be explained in scientific theory, one day. Let’s just say that in years to come, we may be asking: “What does your clock/watch say?” Rather than asking: “What time is it?” That would be more in keeping with future theories, yet not changing the way we measure when to be someplace or when to leave another place. If theorists change the way we perceive events, doing away with the concept of time itself, it could actually be removed from human language. The word “time” may be something left over from an old idea that became extinct.
We may eventually come to believe that what happened in some past year, such as a birthday, was not in time, but a reference point in our existence that we have marked and called the past. Since existence has no measurable beginning point at this time, we may not perceive it as some linear event, yet part of the flow of existence that we can think about as occurring.
As confusing as all of this may seem, it is the direction that a number of physicists are beginning to point to as an explanation of time and whether or not time actually exists.
For now, we must rely on our clocks (such as OnlineClock.net of course!) and our perceptions of time as we have been taught.
Though it is curious as to how we will think and speak of time if these trending arguments are one day proven.
Is Time Just An Invention? is a post from: Alarm Clock Blog, the official blog of the original Online Alarm Clock.
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