Movement, as an evolutionary concept, always manifests itself and is omnipresent in the cosmos, a symbiotic relationship forming between it and time.
From the tiny electrons circling sporadically around their nucleus to celestial bodies that turn gravity into their little game, the flow of time makes its presence felt in the infinite expansion that is the Universe.
The second
Time is forever unchanging, yet passes without notice. Nonetheless, the space it influences and bends keep being transformed by the second.
A second becomes remarkable during its existence. Despite having a brief lifespan, it incorporates the significance of our surroundings and the Universe in a variety of impressive events. The most significant of all, is the first "breath" of the Universe, the Big Bang. The explosion of matter that generated the formation of the Universe scattered particles, which spread into the void at a speed that light would follow only after three hundred millennia.
Time and Light
From the previous statement, we can consider that time cultivated the emergence of light. The bond between light and time is strong, manifesting primarily through the illusion of temporal distortion, malleable from each observer's point of view. A suitable example is the hypothetical situation where a person could travel at a speed very close to or equal to the speed of light.
On one hand, from the runner's perspective, moving at 300,000 kilometers per second, time around them either drastically slows down or stops. On the other hand, from the perspective of an ordinary person walking at 0.003 kilometers per second, the runner would appear as a colored streak passing by. Knowing that the Earth's circumference is 40,075 km, the runner would make seven and a half rotations around the planet in a second, while the walker, traveling at a constant speed with short pauses, would cover the same distance in seven and a half years.
Time dilation, in this circumstance, supports the possibility of time travel, strictly into the future, as the person who rapidly moves will age much more slowly. If the runner continuously rotated at the speed of light around the Earth, in just a minute, they could travel 450 years into the future. Theories like this and the intense grip time has on our perception and the universe are reasons why it is considered the most important dimension.
The relationship between time and light is also displayed, secondly, through the contrast between the past and the present, relating to our perception of what is visible. Light encompasses frames from universal history, but due to its constant speed, certain events that seem to occur at great distances actually happened in the past. We can only see them after the light produced by that event has traveled through the cosmos and reached us. For example, if the closest star to us, Alpha Centauri were to die, we would only observe and feel it 4 years later.
According to professor and physicist Larry Shuman, the interconnection of time and light can be explained through a hockey analogy. This describes the dormant state of time after the Big Bang, where particles acted as goalkeepers and did not let photons, the hockey puck, to slide. Once matter expanded and cooled down from a state of plasma to gas, these particles attracted each other, forming atoms and leaving gaps for photons to pass through.
Time and the Multiverse Theory
Time and space intertwined to form the entirety of the matter we are made of, nurturing the birth of galaxies, stars, planets, and life, but it is speculated that they may not have done so only once. A theory that could explain the origins of time is introduced by physicist Sean M. Carroll, describing time appearing and disappearing with the end and beginning of a new universe. This theoretical phenomenon brings to light a concept called entropy, explaining the progressive and irreversible state of all entities in their expansion and modification in space and time, and their constancy during reversible transformations.
Entropy, the infinite expansion capacity of the Universe, from small to large, in this case, sparked interest among scientists. The dilemma is that precedent to the Big Bang, there was no matter, no source of entropy to set the universe in motion, which is resolved by Sean M. Carroll, through an experiment that involves suddenly dropping a net of aspirin in an aquarium, theoretically out of nothing. From one to as many pills as were in the net, they began to dissolve over an increasingly larger volume until they were dissolved, and the water returned to its initial state of motion, until another net would appear, and the process would restart.
This experiment describes a possibility of our universe being born from another one before it and that one to another before it and so on. It also proves that even in a vacuum, a source of energy can come into existence, something can indeed arise from nothing.
The Universe, "a mountain of space-time grains"
The enthusiasm accompanying the creation of these theories, encompassing possibilities of existence and the way time comes into being, influences the development of humanity's perception of this mysterious construct. According to British physicist Fay Dowker, akin to the billions of different mindsets created in each individual, time is not a supreme and omnipresent whole but is reborn a quadrillion (10^24) times every second, an enormous number.
The physicist's vision is supported by a principle of quantum mechanics, specifying that every motion, regardless of its type, is a series of touches, vibrations of atoms through space, also called causal sets. It’s similar to the youth of animation, where a large number of images, very little changed from their predecessor, were arranged in quick succession to create "digital life."
The theory of relativity describes time as an essential aspect of the homogeneous relationship codependent with space, being a preformed concept that has always existed and will continue to exist. However, Fay Dowker introduces a new way to view the universe, encouraging humanity to see time as an almost tangible entity, something the human mind can incorporate, a presence that manifests like a mountain of sugar, representing the past, an extremely rapid moment in time, a sugar grain falling into the present, and the invisible grains that are yet to fall, opening the gates to millions of possibilities, the future. Through the physicist's experiment involving looking at a sugar cube from different distances, she highlights the hidden layers of time and that nothing is always as it seems at first glance. It is observed that, from a greater distance, the sugar cube appears as a solid whole, but once you approach and scrutinize with attention to detail, each individual sugar crystal can be seen.
Time? “The heat of the moment”
Differently from the scientists mentioned earlier, who believe in various theories regarding the creation and existence of time, Italian physicist Carlo Roverri tackles a more profound question: Does time really exist? He describes time as a ratio of certain spatial factors, illustrating his statements with the movement of a pocket watch in the air. Instead of focusing on the oscillation of the clock in "time," he wants us to focus on the relationship between the spatial elements performing that action in the Universe. There is no need to describe such a notion in time when we can characterize it as the relationship between the angle of the hand moving the clock and the angle of the clock's hand.
Some people, however, disagree with the Italian physicist's theory, believing that time is visible and omnipresent in the evolution of the Universe, from the changes in an individual, from birth to old age, to the rotation of planets symbolizing the passage of days. Carlo Roverri responds with a counter-argument, perhaps true, perhaps false, but extremely plausible, specifying the role of heat in the development of the Cosmos.
Time is a compound, a result of heat, and it is used to limit existence itself to terms that the human mind can perceive. Heat tends towards infinity, but time represents its measurable spectrum.
Time could very well represent nothing, everything, or a multitude of particles, but what will remain unchanged is that between it, space, and humanity, a codependent relationship has been established. Transforming from a theoretical concept into a social construct, it is the only refuge that prevents humanity from collapsing mentally and morally under what is called an existential crisis.
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