One major uncertainty we’ve tried to settle over the last several hundreds of years is whether time exists. The 2011 episode of the American documentary series Through the Wormhole, appropriately titled “Does Time Exist?” explores this question, in consultation with scientists who have been studying time and related topics.
According to the episode, there are two main perspectives on time endorsed in the scientific community and the community-at-large today. First, some believe that time is a real entity, independent from our minds, which would keep on flowing even if there was no life on Earth and no events were taking place. Supporters of this theory think that we can’t ignore our sensory observations that tell us that time is a series of moments that occur in a linear fashion. One scientist mentions our growing older as proof that time is actually like this.
Alternatively, the other major point of view is that time is an illusion that is deduced in our brains, through the observations of events that take place in physical space. The frames of space we perceive seem to move, like frames in a cartoon film, but they actually exist simultaneously, as if the world is a picture broken up into many little chunks. This theory is consistent with Einstein’s theory of relativity, which states that time is created by the relations between the changes that occur within the space of the universe. An experiment is presented within the episode that gives credence to this idea. However, opponents of the belief that time is illusory reject it because it has been arrived at primarily through the use of mathematics, and they believe an unchanging thing like math mustn’t be used to test something that may be changing, like time.
No one’s been able to definitively say which theory holds true. However, research on the current laws of physics that could give us the answer is currently being conducted. If the results of this research show that the laws of physics do not operate in the same way in the oldest part of the universe, this will count as proof that the universe has aged, and therefore time is real.
Of course, whether or not time exists doesn’t change our human experience of time, but this conundrum is certainly interesting to think about. Just don’t try to use the excuse that time is relative to excuse yourself from missing your next deadline at work or school!
What do you think—did humans simply “invent” time? Watch “Does Time Exist?” below for more information on the debate:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xv6i9n_does-time-really-exist-2011_shortfilms#from=embediframe
[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]by Erica Roberts
immagine: Alan Cleaver (Creative Commons BY—no changes)
