Time is defined as a measured or measurable period, acontinuum that lacks spatial dimensions. This broaddefinition lacks the simple explanation that humans aresearching for.
There are many scientists, philosophers, andthinkers who have tried to put time into understandingterms. The aspects of time that we can understand are onlybased on what we can perceive, observe, and calculate. Every day we look at our watches or clocks. We plan our dayaround different times of the day.
Time tells us when toeat, when to sleep, and how long to do things for. If timewere based on these simple terms, then this mysteriousenigma would not be in debate. There are the issues ofspace and time; what is the relationship of the two? Istime relative, or absolute? What makes time seem to gofaster in some instances, and slower in others? Does thespeed of time change, or is it all in our heads? In thefollowing paper, I will discuss the meaning of timeperceived and theorized by two of the greatest minds ofhuman kind. Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking haveexpanded the understanding of time to another level. Theirideas and opinions are what brought us to a higherunderstanding of the earth and the universe.
In thefollowing paragraphs, this paper will encompass these ideas,and try to find a focus of understanding of this thing wecall time. First I will address the question, did time have abeginning? I don’t think that anyone can explain thepostulate that time has always been in existence. Theproblem with this, is that we have no scientific evidence ortheories which can support this argument. Certainly, wecan’t just accept this spiritual idea.
There had to havebeen a beginning of time. The most acceptable explanationof the beginning of time, is the relationship between spaceand time. When space and the universe began, the existenceof time also began. This theory is well-known as the BigBang Theory.
About fifteen billion years ago, the universewas comprised of very hot compressed gas, as a fireball. This is contrary to the idea of the universe beginning as alump of matter somewhere in the void of space. Matter wascreated as a result of the Big Bang. Space and time wasalso created.
So, with these ideas, time had a beginning. Looking at it a different way, in the early universe, thenormal concept of time is uncertain. Our acceptedperceptions, and calculations of time can’t be explained allthe way back to the Big Bang. There is no way to definetime in that era. This is another way that time has abeginning; as far back as we can calculate.
Space-timebegan at the same time. According to Hawking, you can’tlook at the universe using general relativity withoutfinding a big bang or something similar to that at the verybeginning. So what does time mean to people now? Time isdifferent as you go through time zones. Everyone has theirown perception of time.
Nobody is ever on the sameschedule, doing things exactly like another person. Even togo as far as other galaxies and planets, time cannot beexisting on the same terms. In short, time is not absolute. In the space-time continuum, space bends whenever there is amass. It’s kind of like a bowling ball hitting atrampoline.
When it hits, it makes a ?dent?. This is apart in the space-time continuum which is differenteverywhere you go. The universe is expanding. The universecontinues to expand, and the galaxies have continued to moveaway from each other ever since. This is why time is not aconstant term.
Nothing is the same, and there is noabsolutes. Quantum Physics even shows that time is not anabsolute. If you know where an electron is, you can’t knowit’s speed. If you know what the speed of an electron is,then you can’t know its position. If there are two chairs,and you see someone sitting in one, when you turn away, youcan’t be sure that he or she is still there.
You also can’tbe sure that they are not in two chairs at the same time, orwhat point in time they are in them. This all leads up toEinstein’s theory that time is relative. A lot of Einstein’s theories of time relate to thespeed of light. He says that time slows down, as youapproach the speed of light. An experiment to support thistheory was done with two clocks.
Two extremely accurateatomic clocks were set to the same time. One was on theground as a constant, and the other was accelerated by beingflown in a plane. When the one in the plane came back, thetwo clocks were compared and the one that was acceleratedshowed to be a little behind. The difference in time wasnot a lot, but was significant enough to prove his theory. This can be explained in a couple ways. First of all, yourinitial reference point would be traveling at a lot slowerrate, so from an observers point of view, time would staythe same.
But if one was traveling at the speed of light,then he or she would experience time slowing down, becausefrom their point of view, they would be younger compared toeveryone else. Time only exists as we perceive it to be. What is unknown, is why time is perceived differentlyfrom one person to the next. One might be sitting in aclassroom setting, when time seems to go by very slow, andseems like an eternity is passing. In other instances, timemay seem to go by very fast, usually when we are doingenjoyable activities. Every year of your life you may havenoticed the time going by faster.
You may have at one timecaught yourself saying, ?Where has the time gone?’so maybetime is controlled by all of us on an individual basis. Time certainly is relative, and could be centered around anindividual. The ?watched pot never boils? metaphor could betrue, whereas an individual can make time slow down or speedup by themselves. Nobody really knows what time is, whereit’s been, or where it’s going. Black holes may be able to explain the question ofwhere time is going.
Black holes are collapsed stars withextreme amounts of gravity, which light cannot even escape. These black holes may disrupt the space-time continuum,changing the properties of the universe. Most black holesorbit around stars due to the fact that they once were astar, and this may cause some problems for the neighboringstars. If a black hole gets powerful enough it may actuallypull a star into it and disrupt the orbit of many otherstars. The black hole could then grow even stronger (fromthe star’s mass) as to possibly absorb another.
When ablack hole absorbs a star, the star is first pulled into theErgosphere, which sweeps all the matter into the EventHorizon, named for it’s flat horizontal appearance andbecause this happens to be the place where mostly all theaction within the black hole occurs. When the star is passedon into the Event Horizon the light that the star endures isbent within the current and therefore cannot be seen inspace. At this exact point in time, high amounts ofradiation are given off, that with the proper equipment canbe detected and seen as an image of a black hole. The pointin explaining black holes, is that it might explain aboutthe shaping of the universe.
Their existence can change thecomposition of the universe, which can in turn change spaceand time. Time is not easily explained or understood by anyone. Einstein and Hawking have expanded their minds by coming upwith possible theories for the unknown. We can only observeand postulate what we don’t know. We can theorize, andcalculate all we want, but I think it will always be anunknown.
The mysteries of the universe will in my opinionbe just that, a mystery.Philosophy
