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10 mind-bending books on the nature of time
Why does time flow in one direction? Why do humans perceive time so differently than it really is? Is there really a difference between the present, the past, and the future? These books explore these questions and more.
09 December, 2019
- Despite being immersed in it and inexorably propelled by it, we don't really understand time all that well.
- Fortunately, we can rely on the minds of our smartest writers to give us a good understanding of the one thing we all can't get enough of.
- This list of books on time ranges from the complicated to the straightforward, the historical to the speculative, the scientific to the literary, and more.
<p>Carl Sagan once said that "Books break the shackles of time." He was talking about how books allow you to peer into the past, but books can also offer us a better, more accurate understanding of the nature of time, no matter how bizarre that nature really is. This list offers 10 books on time ranging from the simple to the complex, the entertaining to the academic, and everything in between.</p></div><h2>1. <em>A Brief History of Time</em><div></div></h2><div class="rm-shortcode amazon-assets-widget" data-rm-shortcode-id="BWM2TL1575916378" contenteditable="false">
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<p>Predictably, this list must begin with Stephen Hawking's <em>A Brief History of Time</em>. Some may have held off on reading it due to the daunting subject matter — his book may have sold 10 million copies, but Hawking was well aware of its reputation as "<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-15555565" target="_blank">the most popular book never read</a>"</p><p>Rest assured, <em>A Brief History of Time</em> was written specifically for those of us who don't know our quarks from our gluons. It briefly covers the origin, development, and future of the universe but in a comprehensive, digestible, and — most importantly — enthusiastic way. Here's an excerpt:</p><p style="margin-left: 40px;">Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?</p><h2>2. <em>The Order of Time</em></h2><div class="rm-shortcode amazon-assets-widget" data-rm-shortcode-id="L1T1QA1575916378" contenteditable="false">
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<p>Carlo Rovelli is a theoretical physicist at Axis-Marseille University best known for his <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Brief-Lessons-Physics-Rovelli/dp/0399184414" target="_blank">Seven Brief Lessons on Physics</a></em>. Like <em>A Brief History of Time</em>, <em>The Order of Time</em> is designed for the layman, but Rovelli's style differs significantly Hawking's. Rovelli writes in a lyrical, almost poetic style, supplementing the heady physics of time with quotes from figures such as Shakespeare and the Greek philosopher Anaximander. It's a pleasant read, but the combination of hard science and philosophy particularly lends itself to the audio book version narrated by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/books/review/order-of-time-carlo-rovelli.html" target="_blank">Benedict Cumberbatch</a>. You can listen to a sample of the audio book in the video below.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bce093512f801bf7c15b99aa64ccaded"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EthxLecFVcM?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Benedict Cumberbatch on The Order of Time</small>
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<a class="hoverZoomLink" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EthxLecFVcM" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
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</p><h2>3. <em>Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps: Empires of Time</em></h2><div class="rm-shortcode amazon-assets-widget" data-rm-shortcode-id="HIL6HE1575916379" contenteditable="false">
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<div class="amazon-assets-widget__title" style="display: block;">By Peter Galison - Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps: Empires of Time: 1st (first) Edition</div>
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<p>There are few concepts more crucial to our modern understanding of time than the theory of relativity, most famously elaborated by Albert Einstein. However, Einstein's theory didn't emerge from a vacuum; his contemporaries were hard at work on relativity, including his rival, Jules Henri Poincaré.</p><p>In essence, the theory of relativity showed that there was no such thing as a universal time; time flows differently for different systems. In <em>Einstein's Clocks, Poincar</em><em>é's Maps: Empires of Time</em>, author <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/17/books/it-s-about-time-it-s-about-space.html" target="_blank">Peter Galiso</a>n explores the extraordinary period of history when this theory was discovered. Rather than serving as a solely scientific exploration of time, Galison's book has been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/24/science/science-historian-work-peter-galison-clocks-that-shaped-einstein-s-leap-time.html" target="_blank">described</a> as "part history, part science, part adventure, part biography."</p><h2>4. <em>Your Brain is a Time Machine</em></h2><div class="rm-shortcode amazon-assets-widget" data-rm-shortcode-id="DAGKE71575916379" contenteditable="false">
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<p>Part of what makes learning about the physics of time so fascinating is how wildly it differs from our intuitive understanding of time. Though we can conduct experiments and analyses to develop an objective conceptualization of time, we're still stuck with the way our squishy brains like to perceive time. But thinking that our "natural" view of time is less interesting would be wrong.</p><p>Physicists and philosophers espouse the idea of eternalism — that there is no fundamental difference between the past, present, and future. "There is absolutely nothing particularly special about the present: under eternalism now is to time as here is to space," writes <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2132847-your-brain-is-a-time-machine-why-we-need-to-talk-about-time/" target="_blank">neuroscientist Dean Buonomano</a> in <em>Your Brain is a Time Machine</em>. But in our perception, "now" is the most important aspect of time, the only accessible portion of it. </p><p>In his book, Buonomano explores the myriad ways our brains and bodies keep track of time, how we travel through time in our own way, and how this biological sense of time clashes or connects with the physics of time.</p><h2>5. <em>Slaughterhouse Five</em></h2><div class="rm-shortcode amazon-assets-widget" data-rm-shortcode-id="B5R1UZ1575916379" contenteditable="false">
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<p>You don't have to stick to hard science to build an understanding of time. In fact, doing so would provide a lopsided picture of time, leaving out the crucial fact that we are subjective individuals with unique points of view. </p><p>To learn more about this aspect of time, we have to turn to literature: Kurt Vonnegut's <em>Slaughterhouse Five</em> traces the contours of how time affects us, our memory, and most of all how trauma distorts our sense of it.</p><p>Billy Pilgrim, the book's antagonist, survives the firebombing of Dresden by hiding out in a slaughterhouse — an event that Vonnegut lived through himself — only later to become unstuck in time, forced to witness the events of his life randomly, without any control, over and over again:</p><p style="margin-left: 40px;">Listen:</p><p style="margin-left: 40px;">Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.</p><p style="margin-left: 40px;">Billy has gone to sleep a senile widower and awakened on his wedding day. He has walked through a door in 1955 and come out another one in 1941. He has gone back through that door to find himself in 1963. He has seen his birth and death many times, he says, and pays random visits to all events in between.</p><h2>6. <em>The Dialogues</em></h2><div class="rm-shortcode amazon-assets-widget" data-rm-shortcode-id="YGRMST1575916379" contenteditable="false">
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<p>One of the intractable problems with physics is how darn abstract it is. Getting a good understanding of science sometimes requires the use of visual aids. That's why <em>The Dialogues</em> made this list; though it doesn't focus specifically on time, it does cover the nature of time, along with numerous other subjects in the sciences as portrayed through illustrated conversations.<br></p><h2>7. <em>From Eternity to Here</em></h2><div class="rm-shortcode amazon-assets-widget" data-rm-shortcode-id="20D8U81575916379" contenteditable="false">
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<p>Sean Carroll's <em>From Eternity to Here</em> focuses on a specific characteristic of time and offers a theory on how time operates. Carroll's book examines what physicists refer to as the arrow of time, or the idea that time always seems to be moving in one direction — into the future, forward, and not backward.</p><p>There's no real reason for this to be the case, however. Why doesn't time flow backward? In his book, Carroll posits that it could be because the Big Bang wasn't the start of the universe, that conditions from before the Big Bang have determined that the arrow of time flows forward. Carroll explains this possibility in his TED Talk in the video below:</p><p><br></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-youtube">
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="68c17796e36c917fba8b3ba68efb07bf"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WMaTyg8wR4Y?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Cosmology and the arrow of time: Sean Carroll at TEDxCaltech</small>
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<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMaTyg8wR4Y" target="_blank">www.youtube.com</a>
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</p><h2>8. <em>A World without Time</em></h2><div class="rm-shortcode amazon-assets-widget" data-rm-shortcode-id="L7BM4J1575916379" contenteditable="false">
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<p>Einstein's theory of relativity set the scene for our modern understanding of time, but for logician Kurt Gödel — a lifelong friend of Einstein's — it also revealed a bizarre conclusion. Gödel argued that in any universe where the theory of relativity was true, time could not exist at all. </p><p>In <em>A World Without Time</em>, Palle Yougrau covers Einstein's and Gödel's friendship, the underpinnings of Gödel's time-less philosophy, and how modern cosmologists and philosophers seem to have forgotten all about Gödel.</p><h2>9. <em>The Fabric of the Cosmos</em></h2><div class="rm-shortcode amazon-assets-widget" data-rm-shortcode-id="9ZX7IJ1575916379" contenteditable="false">
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<p>Physicist Brian Greene lays out the fundamental nature of the universe in this book, dedicating one out of its five parts to time and experience. In it, he explores the flow of time, how the laws of physics apply equally as well when time flows backwards as it does when it flows forwards, and the nature of time in the quantum realm.</p><p>Greene also explores many other aspects of the universe, including some ideas that are controversial amongst scientists, making this a valuable read for those interested in more than just time. "Cosmology," writes Greene, "is among the oldest subjects to captivate our species. And it's no wonder. We're storytellers, and what could be more grand than the story of creation?"</p><h2>10. <em>The Direction of Time</em></h2><div class="rm-shortcode amazon-assets-widget" data-rm-shortcode-id="PGNU3S1575916379" contenteditable="false">
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<p>Hans Reichenbach was a philosopher of science from the 20<sup>th</sup> century, and as such, his perspective is a little different than that of career physicists. In his work, <em>The Direction of Time</em>, Reichenbach analyzed the philosophical implications of the many exciting findings of the theorists of his day. In fact, Rovelli, author of <em>The Order of Time</em>, cited it as one of his favorite books on time. In a review of <em>The Direction of Time</em>, Rovelli <a href="https://fivebooks.com/best-books/time-carlo-rovelli/" target="_blank">writes</a>,<br></p><p style="margin-left: 40px;">He was the first, as far as I know, to fully grasp the implications of the fact that the growth of entropy is the only law of physics that distinguishes the past from the future. This means that the existence of traces, memories and causation are just byproducts of entropy growth. This is a shocking realisation, which I believe has not been fully digested yet.</p>
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Radical theory says our universe sits on an inflating bubble in an extra dimension
Cosmologists propose a groundbreaking model of the universe using string theory.
21 January, 2019
Getty Images/Suvendu Giri
- A new paper uses string theory to propose a new model of the universe.
- The researchers think our universe may be riding a bubble expanded by dark energy.
- All matter in the universe may exist in strings that reach into another dimension.
</li></ul>
<p>Our universe may be having itself quite a great time it seems. Cosmologists from <a href="https://www.uu.se/en/news-media/news/article/?id=11938&typ=artikel" target="_blank">Uppsala University</a> came up with a new model that proposes the universe may be riding on an ever-expanding bubble in an extra dimension. </p><p>In particular, according to this theory, published in <a href="https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.261301" target="_blank">Physical Review Letters</a>, the researchers offer a novel explanation for how the universe may be getting bigger. The fact of its accelerating expansion has been known for about the past 20 years but the explanation for that has relied rather unsatisfyingly on the mysterious "dark energy". </p><p>In their new paper, the Swedish scientists approach this topic from the direction of <a href="https://bigthink.com/videos/michio-kaku-explains-string-theory" target="_blank"></a><strong><a href="https://bigthink.com/videos/michio-kaku-explains-string-theory" target="_blank">string theory</a>,</strong> which maintains that all matter is made of tiny vibrating strings. The theory also allows for the existence of extra dimensions, in addition to the three spatial ones we experience on a daily basis.</p>
<p>The groundbreaking new idea by the researchers says that the universe may be sitting on the edge of an expanding bubble,<strong> </strong>while all matter exists on strings that reach outward from it into an extra dimension. Dark energy would be the inflating force in this bubble, the existence of which is supported by string theory, claim the scientists. </p><p>In case you're wondering, they think such bubbles should be rather stable, writing there's "a strong indication in favor of the stability of these bubbles."</p><p>Perhaps even more excitingly, there could be more bubbles than just the one with our universe on it. Each one of those carrying another universe. </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">'In this context, the cosmology we see as 4D observers is not due to vacuum energy, but rather arises as an effective description on a dynamical object embedded in a higher dimensional space,' the researchers <a href="https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.261301" target="_blank">explain</a>.</p>
<p>The Uppsala University team included Souvik Banerjee, Ulf Danielsson, Giuseppe Dibitetto, Suvendu Giri, and Marjorie Schillo.</p><p>As they write in their paper, black holes can also be re-defined by this new theory:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Gravitational collapse of the string endpoints in four dimensions results in an unstable black string solution in five dimensions," <a href="https://journals.aps.org/prl/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.261301" target="_blank">state the scientists.</a></p><p>Check out their research for yourself <a href="https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.261301" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
Michio Kaku: The multiverse has 11 dimensions
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How the Big Rip could end the world
A theory from cosmology claims the Universe could rip apart to shreds.
16 December, 2018
Pixabay
- A cosmological model predicts that the expanding Universe could rip itself apart.
- Too much dark energy could overwhelm the forces holding matter together.
- The disaster could happen in about 22 billion years.
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<p>Perhaps it's not the most cheerful thought, but people have preoccupied themselves with how the world around them could end for millennia. Now in the scientific age, one such dire prediction comes from math and physics. The theory of the <strong>Big Rip</strong> says that at some point in the distant future, the universe could rip itself apart, with everything in existence from animals to atoms becoming shredded.</p><p>''In some ways it sounds more like science fiction than fact,'' <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/17/science/from-space-a-new-view-of-doomsday.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">said</a> physicist <strong>Dr. Robert Caldwell </strong>of Dartmouth, who first proposed this dramatic idea in a <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0302506" target="_blank">2003 paper</a> he wrote with <strong>Dr. Marc Kamionkowski </strong>and <strong>Dr. Nevin Weinberg</strong> from the California Institute of Technology. </p><p>The cosmological model of the Big Rip is predicated on the notion that if the universe continues to accelerate in its expansion, it will eventually reach the point where all the forces that hold it together would be overcome by <strong>dark energy. </strong>Dark energy is the rather mysterious force that is predicted to make up <strong>68% </strong>of the energy of the observable universe. If it overwhelms gravitational, electromagnetic and weak nuclear forces, the universe would literally come apart.</p><p> A new model of the Big Rip theory <a href="https://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.91.043532" target="_blank">published in 2015</a> actually came up with the date when the Universe would meet its demise - about <strong>22 billion years</strong> from now. The 2015 model was developed by professor <strong>Marcelo Disconzi </strong>of Vanderbilt University in collaboration with physics professors <strong>Thomas Kephart </strong>and <strong>Robert Scherrer.</strong> </p>
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xOTAwNzU3NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYwMjU4Nzg2OH0.Ntyg_V04rj0ESp8o6Y_fYsBfkCV7f_h57ND9S1fz9MY/img.jpg?width=980" id="85a57" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="198734bc12cf2e179f63636d1f1c72ca" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
The timeline of how life universe ends up in a Big Rip.
Credit: Jeremy Teaford, Vanderbilt University
<p>Disconzi's hypothesis says that a Big Rip can occur when dark energy will become stronger than gravity, reaching a point when it can rip apart single atoms. The professor's model shows that as its expansion becomes infinite, the <strong>viscosity of the universe </strong>will be responsible for its destruction. Cosmological viscosity measures how <em>sticky</em> or resistant the universe is to expanding or contracting. </p><p>If the Big Rip theory is correct, one day we could reach a moment when planets and everything on them will be torn apart. Then the atomic and molecular forces will be ripped open, electrons splitting from atoms, all the way down to the quarks and anything smaller. But until then, check out his video for more on the Big Rip:</p>
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="e0de2c342d1581ab15f0ce67ec287e3b"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4OdrV7gbyhU?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span>
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3 stunning ways Earth and spacetime could be destroyed
A well-known cosmologist comes out with very stark warnings about particle accelerators.
11 October, 2018
Getty Images
- Respected astrophysicist Martin Reese has serious misgivings about the safety of the Large Hadron Collider.
- The collider could destroy us in 3 different ways, warns Reese.
- Despite the dangers, innovation should continue but with caution.
</li></ul><p><a href="https://home.cern/topics/large-hadron-collider" target="_blank">The Large Hadron Collider</a> (LHC), the world's biggest scientific instrument, is also the planet's most powerful particle accelerator. And that makes it a potential danger not just to itself or its immediate surroundings in Switzerland, but to Earth and maybe even our reality itself. </p><p>This warning comes not from an incorrigible luddite but the influential British astrophysicist Lord <a href="https://royalsociety.org/people/martin-rees-12156/" target="_blank">Martin Rees</a>, who sees <strong>three </strong><strong>ways</strong> in which the collider could cause a disaster of cosmic proportions.</p><p><strong><u>1. A BLACK HOLE SUCKS US IN</u></strong></p><p>For one, cautions Rees in his new book <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/13251.html" target="_blank"><em>On The Future: Prospects for Humanity</em></a><em>,</em> it's possible for the experiments conducted at the LHC to form a black hole which would "suck in everything around it". </p><p><strong><u>2. EARTH GETS SHRUNK</u></strong></p><p>And if apocalypse by way of black holes doesn't come to pass, it's also conceivable that Earth could get compressed into a <strong>"hyperdense sphere about one hundred metres across,"</strong> as writes Lord Rees, the Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics at the University of Cambridge. </p><p>That could happen due to the subatomic <strong>quarks</strong> generated by the Large Hadron Collider, which smashes particles against each other at super-high speeds to study the fallout. The quarks could reassemble themselves into appropriately named (and currently hypothetical) particles called <strong>strangelets</strong>, which, in turn, could transform everything in their way into a new highly-compressed form of matter. So Earth would become no larger than a football field.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODcxNDg3Ni9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NDY2NTM5N30.fLS7DtyyufPK_O39BxNEqjBOhfNGxrKgf-s2rUTNamQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="fcf4e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ba6de77ca9b32de9708aa6325de86593" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Aerial view of CERN'S Large Hadron Collider.</small></p><p><strong><u>3. SPACETIME GETS RIPPED</u></strong></p><p>There is, unfortunately, a third way towards unimaginable disaster courtesy of the LHC and other particle accelerators like the <a href="http://www.thespaceacademy.org/2018/06/china-is-building-its-own-version-of.html" target="_blank">new one being built in China</a> which would be <strong>twice as large and 7 times as powerful</strong> as CERN's. Martin Rees thinks that there's a chance the colliders could cause a "catastrophe that engulfs space itself". That's certainly nothing to take lightly. </p><p>Rees explains that contrary to what might be popularly imagined, the vacuum of space is not really full of mostly nothing but emptiness. The vacuum, says Rees, has in it "all the forces and particles that govern the physical world." And it's possible that the vacuum we can observe is actually "fragile and unstable."</p><p>What this means is that when a collider creates concentrated energy by crashing particles together, it can cause a <strong>"phase transition"</strong> which would tear the fabric of space. "This would be a cosmic calamity not just a terrestrial one," <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/13251.html" target="_blank">notes Rees.</a></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODcxNDgwMC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1NTAxNDU0MX0.L4mcMsgY1BgdUmLjOijtmj8da582GYXgm3LAL1rPweI/img.jpg?width=980" id="37da5" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="60771000cc933e5e4a36996e99bc509b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" data-gramm="true" data-gramm_editor="true" data-gramm_id="b1540533-7abc-c764-cc5f-fcb0840e31e4" placeholder="add caption..." spellcheck="false">Professor Baron Martin Rees of Ludlow, speaks during a news conference in London on July 20, 2015. </small></p><div class="_1BN1N Kzi1t BD-0J _7_mnr _2DJZN" style="z-index: 2; transform: translate(443px, 310.672px);"><div class="_1HjH7"><div class="_3qe6h" title="Protected by Grammarly"> </div></div></div><p> <small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Photo credit: NIKLAS HALLE'N/AFP/Getty Images</small></p><p><strong><u>So, can it happen?</u></strong><br></p><p>While dramatic fears have circled around the Large Hadron Collider from the start, the LHC has always maintained that the work carried out there is safe. CERN, which runs the LHC, <a href="https://press.cern/backgrounders/safety-lhc" target="_blank">states on its website</a> that according to a 2003 report "LHC collisions present no danger and that there are no reasons for concern." </p><p>In fact, points out the European nuclear research organization, there's nothing being done at the lab that nature hasn't already "done many times over during the lifetime of the Earth and other astronomical bodies."</p><p>The LHC staff goes even so far as to specifically refute the threat from <em>strangelets</em>. They turn to a study done in 2000 that "showed that there was no cause for concern." The statement goes on to observe that the collider "has now run for eight years, searching for strangelets without detecting any."</p><blockquote>"The second scary possibility is that the quarks would reassemble themselves into compressed objects called strangelets," <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/13251.html" target="_blank">writes Rees.</a> "That in itself would be harmless. However under some hypotheses a strangelet could, by contagion, convert anything else it encounters into a new form of matter, transforming the entire earth in a hyperdense sphere about one hundred metres across."</blockquote><p>Still, an argument that there's nothing to fear just because they haven't found anything too strange and extraordinary is not completely comforting. </p><p>What would Lord Rees, who sees such dangers, do to the collider? The scientist, known for carrying out important theoretical work on a variety of subjects – from black hole formation to extragalactic radio sources and the evolution of the Universe – is not necessary calling for the LHC to be shut down. </p><p>Rather <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/13251.html" target="_blank">he reminds</a> that "innovation is often hazardous." That doesn't mean you shouldn't innovate but that "physicists should be circumspect about carrying out experiments that generate conditions with no precedent, even in the cosmos." Words to live by when nothing less than the continual existence of the world is at stake.</p>
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New controversial theory: Past, present, future exist simultaneously
Our experience of time may be blinding us to its true nature, say scientists.
23 September, 2018
Back to the Future.
- Time may not be passing at all, says the Block Universe Theory.
- Time travel may be possible.
- Your perception of time is likely relative to you and limited.
</li></ul>
<p>We seem to perceive time as passing in one direction. After all, we can't just just forward to the future or revisit our past if we felt like it. Every minute of every day appears to move us ahead, pulling us through our lives towards an inexorable demise. At least that's what the conventional experience of time tells us. But what if your present, past, and future all existed already? Time, from that point of view, would not flow.</p><p><strong>The block universe theory</strong> says that our universe may be looked at as a giant four-dimensional block of spacetime, containing all the things that ever happen, <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-09-02/block-universe-theory-time-past-present-future-travel/10178386" target="_blank">explained</a><strong> Dr. Kristie Miller, </strong>the joint director for the <a href="https://sydney.edu.au/arts/our-research/centres-institutes-and-groups/centre-for-time.html" target="_blank">Centre for Time</a> at the University of Sydney.</p><p>In the block universe, there is no "now" or present. All moments that exist are just relative to each other within the three spacial dimensions and one time dimension. Your sense of the present is just reflecting where in the block universe you are at that instance. The "past" is just a slice of the universe at an earlier location while the "future" is at a later location.</p>
<p>So, is time just an elaborate mind trick? And more importantly - is time travel possible?</p><p>Dr. Miller's answer to that is "yes". Of course, just hypothetically, since we'd need to figure out first how to travel at "some reasonable percentage of the speed of light". Going to the past would entail using <a href="https://www.space.com/20881-wormholes.html" target="_blank">wormholes</a>, like "short cuts through space-time".</p>
<p><br><br></p><p><img src="https://assets.rbl.ms/18650985/980x.jpg"> <small>Block Universe diagram.</small><small>Credit: ABC Science</small></p>
<p>Now, if you did manage to get back in time, you won't be able to change it. This is because your past is always simultaneously someone else's future. So if you travel to the past, you're just making that future the way it is. So don't worry about <a href="http://timetravelphilosophy.net/topics/grandfather/" target="_blank">"grandfather paradoxes"</a> - your time machine has already been incorporated into the scheme of things.</p><blockquote>'If I travel to the past, I am part of the past," <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-09-02/block-universe-theory-time-past-present-future-travel/10178386" target="_blank">said Miller.</a> "Importantly, I was always part of the past."</blockquote>
<p>What's more - maybe the past has already been altered by time travelers. How would we be able to tell if it hasn't? <em>"For all we know, the reason the past is the way it is, is in part due to the presence of time travelers," added Miller.</em><br></p><p>By that logic, what you do tomorrow will make it the way it is, with you fulfilling a certain destiny writ in time, which is in itself more of an illusion than a fundamental property of nature.</p><p>Certainly, with such claims, the block universe theory has its detractors. One big criticism is that the future shouldn't exist yet. Physicist <strong>Lee Smolin</strong> <a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-debate-over-the-physics-of-time-20160719/" target="_blank">wrote</a> that <em>"The future is not now real and there can be no definite facts of the matter about the future." </em>Furthermore, as he <a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-debate-over-the-physics-of-time-20160719/" target="_blank">added</a> at a 2017 conference, what is real is just "the process by which future events are generated out of present events."</p>
<p>Another negative of this idea is if the block universe is static, what is the point of anything? Can you have progress? Answering that is the "evolving block universe" model which sees the block of the universal space-time growing rather than staying the same. The surface of such a volume would represent the present moment. It's when<em> "the indefiniteness of the future changes to the definiteness of the past,"</em> as <a href="https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-debate-over-the-physics-of-time-20160719/" target="_blank">described</a> it cosmologist George Ellis. Under that model, the changing part would be the future. </p><p>While the debates are going to continue, the block universe theory is one of the most promising approaches that can reconcile the cosmological view of time with our everyday experience. What may be certain - time is much more than what it appears to be. Unraveling its mysteries is integral to understanding the human experience.</p>
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