Time
By: Dakota Phelps
Time... such a curiously evasive concept. Yes Time is a concept, and perhaps nothing more. Time is not tangible, so can it exist? If so, does it exist in more than one form? Mysterious in nearly every way, Time plays a crucial role in every life, every day. This seems unlikely however, given that man cannot be sure as to what exactly Time even is. The purpose of this paper is to understand Time by defining the concept in multiple distinctive ways, by determining the tangibility of Time itself, and by comparing both its “measurability” and “immeasurability” in the literal and abstract.
Firstly, to understand Time it must be defined. Time can be defined in an inexhaustible amount of ways. One of the most universally accepted authorities on defining language is the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. “Time: a non-spatial continuum that is measured in terms of events which succeed one another from past through present to future (7).” This definition is accepted by the majority, but it isn’t indisputable. After all, how can something be definitively classified that isn’t seen, felt, heard, smelled, or tasted? Since the birth of man into this world, our species has attempted to understand, and identify that seemingly ever passing capacity that houses our existence and allows the clarification of events in a practical manner. This relatively perpetual drive of curiosity has been the unceasing force behind man’s thirst for knowledge for all of eternity, and the question concerning the definition of Time has been the one that has evaded both the cleverest and simplest minds alike.
This is a way to show the practicality of Time. The understanding of Time derives from the realization that, “Something happened, something is happening, and something should happen.” Merriam-Webster’s definition would then constitute the belief that Time is not a being of physical existence, but rather that Time exists only as an idealistic mean with which we can organize the events that occur daily. Time then does not exist as a tangible entity composed of matter, but rather Time exists only as man’s attempt at understanding the difference between what was and what will be(2).
This is reasonable in the literal, but all things to be logically defined, must be considered from at least two angles, the literal and abstract. Abstractly, Time is much less simple. According to “The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life” The author (Philip Zimbardo) states that Time is finite. We all die, and we as humans base Time on the span of our lives. Interpretations of long and short are based on the concept of the present in relation to the future and the past. In essence, Time is an imaginary tool, harnessed to organize daily events (2).
An alternative belief is to interpret Time as a constantly flowing river. As Heraclitus said, “No man ever steps into the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man (3).” This gives light to a concept that would present Time not as an illusion dependent upon perspective as presented in the literal, but rather in the abstract as an entity that is in a constant state of change. To interpret Time as having characteristics similar to that of a river might suggest that, like a river, Time flows in one direction, and never really stops.
Additionally, to understand Time, the measurability of Time must be decided, and if selected to be possible, then the method with which it can be accurately measured must be chosen. The measurability of Time is ultimately independent of which definition is elected. When referring to the past, Time is measured first by years or less, then decades, then centuries, then millennium (2). All of these are based upon the revolution of the Earth around the sun. The ancient Egyptians have the distinct honor of having invented not only the modern 365 day calendar but the leap year system as well by monitoring the Earth in relation to the sun. This resulted in a solar system established calendar, based on twelve months of thirty days each, with five extra days, first conceived of by the ancient Egyptians. These people also noticed that there was two lots of twelve hour periods in a day, giving us the twenty-four hour clock. Each hour could be divided into twelve units of five minutes, and each minute could be divided into twelve units of five seconds (8). This gives us the modern day method of measuring Time in the past tense.
In the beginning of man’s quest to understand Time, there was only the present, and the past. A hypothesis was formed, “If something happened, and something is happening, then something must happen.” This abstract thought and complexity gave birth to the concept of the future. The method with which we measure the past was therefore adopted to be used to measure the future as well. Here it can be concluded that both the past and the future are measurable. The present however, existing only as the convergence of past and future, doesn’t exist as something that is measurable. The present is the idea of that span of Time that is between both future and past. Because it is accepted that the flow of Time cannot be stopped, then every instant of passing Time changes in the present from future to past and is therefore, again, immeasurable (2).
Changing from the literal to the abstract, suggests that Time cannot be definitively measured. Because in our minds Time passes at different speeds, it must then be relative. The passing of Time spaces intervals differently (5). Imagine a falling coin, as time progresses, the coin falls faster, and because of this speed, it seems that it takes less time for the coin to transverse a given distance. The further from the starting point the coin gets, the faster it moves. The same is true for Time. The farther away Time gets, the less it takes for time to transverse. The closer to the present Time is, the slower it seems to travel. This can mean a number of things, and today’s scientists are trying to narrow them down.
Biologists traditionally divide time keeping into three categories, circadian rhythms, second-minute timing, and millisecond timing. The circadian rhythm is on a twenty-four hour period and controls sleep and wakefulness. Second-minute timing, or interval timing, is the Time we use in the present as is the most frequently used. Millisecond timing controls fine motor tasks and innate reactions. These are the three methods of measuring the passage of Time(5).
Until recently interval timing was not accepted as being biological, but rather as the side effect of general cognition. The part of our brain that is now thought to control interval timing is known as the brain’s pacemaker. Two students at Duke University supposed that the pacemaker was located in a part of the brain called the stratum, which monitors another part of the brain called the frontal cortex. As neurons travel and perform tasks within the brain, they produce a trail of electric excitation. These excitations are received and detected by the stratum and then integrated into an estimate of how much Time has passed(5). Although this hypothesis is a relatively new work in progress, it does show how physical, or biological Time really can be.
Finally, Time has been defined, and it's measurability determined. The only thing left to do, is to decide whether or not Time is tangible. In the literal sense, this question can be somewhat contradicting. After all, if Time has been defined and can in fact be measured, than it MUST exist. If Time exists than due to the mathematically restricting laws of physics, there must be some tangibility to it. If Time has tangibility than it must be manipulable to some degree.
Time as we have accepted, flows like a stream on a flat platform. Time is constantly moving in one direction without change but, like a stream, if some force exerted were strong enough to divert the course of this stream, than it would in some way change(4). If you can change the way that the platform sets, than the stream will move backward or forward, giving us the idea of Time travel.
The present is as previously mentioned a transition between both the future and the past, and as such is both the past and future. Past=Present=Future. If what we do in the present can manipulate the future, why then can we not manipulate the past? Humoring this idea, we must be consistent. If time is relative as we have already established, then by manipulating it positionally it must affect only the person manipulating it. So then by moving either forward or backward in Time, it would seem to only affect the individual.
Now if someone were to travel through Time, how would we measure their progression? (4) claims that “Time as measurement through the transversal of space can
be represented as a cube, where the extension of Pythagoras's theorem is true.” Pythagoras's theorem states that where one side of a right triangle squared, plus the other side of a right triangle squared, will equal the hypotenuse squared. Similarly, the extension would be . This formula will state that in the instance of a cube, the base of the cube squared, plus the height of the cube squared, plus the width of the cube squared, will equal the transversal diagonal of the figure squared. This is where the transversal diagonal is depicted as being the line that connects one corner of the cube, to it's opposite(4). To say whether or not it is possible to travel through Time is as of now an unknown. It certainly isn't a ridiculous philosophy however far fetched it may seem.
Another theory all together is that of the concept of dimensions of existence. This theory would give way to the belief that Time is not flat, and does move in at least three dimensions. Our universe that we know, is the dimension we are in, contained by Time. Time and space are connected, and together are warped because of the existence of matter. This state of being warped causes our universe to be connected by breaches of Time called wormholes(6). No one can be sure as to where these wormholes are, or just exactly as they work, but the physicist most commonly renown as being the smartest man to ever live came up with the theory, Albert Einstein. To briefly view the tangibility of Time in the abstract, would be to assume that while it exists, it is composed of currently unknown state of being that allows it to be impervious to the mental or physical flux of force.
Time... is a curiously evasive concept. It seems the more and more one tries to grasp it, the further it buries itself into the realm of mystery. For now it would seem that for the purpose of continuing on with ones own questions concerning Time, they would need to decide whether or not to position themselves on the side of the literal or the abstract. To agree with both perspectives is many times misleading and contradicting. Time has however been defined in multiple ways. An array of conceptual methods of measurement have been indicated. Even the tangibility of such an elusive entity has been guessed at, hinting the very shape of Time itself and presenting the ideas of Time travel and wormholes. Not much more could be done with the research alloted but perhaps somewhere, someday, someone will crack the code to understanding Time, and unlock a secret that has forever evaded the very fabrics of humanity.