Is Time a real thing ?
Is Time a real thing ? Such a great and complex question.
so we know that hour, min and sec are the assumptions made for our convenience to measure the time .We experience the world sequentially: yesterday, then today, then tomorrow. The way that we are made makes us experience things this way and see the world the way we do. But then, what really time is? Let us try to find out in this article delight.
The Illusion of Time : What’s Real ?
Time doesn’t exist in an absolute sense.
We experience time because of space between us, if there is no separation(space) between us then we can’t talk out time. In the Special Theory of Relativity ( know more : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity ), Einstein determined that time is relative—in other words, the rate at which time passes depends on your frame of reference. A second in one reference frame may be longer compared to a second in another reference frame.
According to Special Relativity, to a person in strong gravity, time appears to pass normally, while a clock in weak gravity runs fast. While to the person in weak gravity, the clock appears to run normally and the clock in strong gravity runs slowly. Of course, there is nothing wrong with the clocks. Time itself is slowing down and speeding up because of the relativistic way in which mass warps space and time. In Einstein words,
“People like us who believe in physics know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” In other words, time is an illusion.”
A philosophy suggested by Lee Smolin, in Part II of the book “The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time” (2015):
“Temporal naturalism holds that all that is real (i.e. the natural world) is real at a moment of time, which is one of a succession of moments. The future is not real and there are no facts of the matter about it. The past consists of events or moments which have been real, and there is evidence of past moments in presently observable facts such as fossils, structures, records, etc. Hence there are statements about the past that can have truth values, even if they refer to nothing presently real.”
So what about “Arrow of time” ?
The arrow of time expresses the fact that in the world about us the past is distinctly different from the future. Milk spills but doesn’t unspill; eggs splatter but do not unsplatter; waves break but do not unbreak; we always grow older, never younger. These processes all move in one direction in time – they are called “time-irreversible” and define the arrow of time. The idea that entropy is associated with the “arrow of time” has its roots in Clausius’s statement on the Second Law: “Entropy of the Universe always increases.”
Dr. Stephen W. Hawking described three ”arrows” of time: the Psychological Arrow, which he defined as ”the direction of time in which we remember the past but not the future”; the Thermodynamic Arrow, related to entropy and the Cosmological Arrow. This third arrow is dependent on continuous expansion of the universe. As long as the universe is expanding, creating more and more space, energy leaking from processes within such a universe will be irretrievable. Dr. Hawking pointed out that ”there is a big difference between the forward and backward directions of time in ordinary life.”
Why is time controversial?
Time seems to be the universal background through which all events proceed, such that order can be sequenced and durations measured. Huw Price, professor of philosophy at Cambridge University, claims that the three basic properties of time come not from the physical world but from our mental states: A present moment that is special; some kind of flow or passage; and an absolute direction. “What physics gives us,” Price said, “is the so-called ‘block universe,’ where time is just part of a four-dimensional space-time … and space-time itself is not fundamental but emerges out of some deeper structure.”
The idea that time is not real is counterintuitive. But many ideas about how the world works that humanity had taken for granted have required a complete rethink.
“So life is like a movie, and space-time is like the DVD,” Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Max Tegmark says; “there’s nothing about the DVD itself that is changing in any way, even though there’s all this drama unfolding in the movie. We have the illusion, at any given moment, that the past already happened and the future doesn’t yet exist, and that things are changing. But all I’m ever aware of is my brain state right now. The only reason I feel like I have a past is that my brain contains memories.”
The question of Time being controversial is often baffled us, given that defining time often ends up getting lined with some sort of change or movement. And change itself is a function of time!!
Final takeaways
There seems to be no simple scientific answer. The difficulty in accepting the conclusion that time doesn’t exist is that every aspect of the way we live as civilized human beings seems to evince the reality of time. However, perhaps the main problems surrounding the unreality of time aren’t our inability to transcend the perception of it and all scientific explanations, but rather what could happen if we do. We humans are hopelessly caught up in time !!
“It isn’t time that’s passing by, It is you and I.”
– Ruskin Bond
Read more : The Crocodile Paradox ( https://thebrightdelights.com/the-crocodile-paradox/ )
Books for more insights on the subject :
The Direction of Time ( https://amzn.to/3qiLmYa )
A Brief History Of Time: From Big Bang To Black Holes ( https://amzn.to/3Fng2vF )
Time on Earth ( https://amzn.to/3r9Pzwt )