Thoughts on Time

Thinking of time Nothing puzzles me more than time and space and yet nothing puzzles me less, for I never think about them. [Mendilow,1952] What is time? If no one asks me, I know; but when I am asked, I am baffled. Saint Augustine, (354 - 430) It is impossible to mediate on time . . . without an overwhelming emotion at the limitations of human intelligence. Alfred North Whitehead (1861 - 1947) What is time? Time is what keeps everything from happening at once. Ray Cummings: The Time Professor, 1921 Time is the order of possibilities which cannot coexist and therefore must exist successfully Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1642-1727) Time is moving image of eternity. Plato (428 - 348): Timaeus Thus time came into being with the heavens in order that, having come into being together, they should also be dissolved together if ever they are dissolved; and it was made as like as possible to eternity, which was its model. Plato: Timaeus [there is] the Plain of Truth, in which lie the designs, moulds, ideas, and invariable examples of all things which were, or shall be; and about there is Eternity, whence flowed Time, as from a river, into worlds. Plutarch, De defectu oratorum, ch. 22. 422 BC Proclus commented that this is "barbarous opinion" ...time cannot be disconnected from change, for we experience no changes in consciousness, or if we are not aware of them, no time seems to have passed. We are not aware of time when we do not distinguish any change. Aristotle: Physics Absolute time Whether things run or stand still, whether we sleep or wake, time flows in its even tenor. Isaac Barrow Lectiones Geometricae 1676 Absolute, true, and mathematical time of itself and from its own nature . . . flows equably without relation to anything external Sir Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727): Principia Because Mathematicians frequently make use of Time, they ought to have a distinct Idea of the meaning of the Word, otherwise they are Quacks. Isaac Barrow (Newton's teacher) Against the absolute time ...space and time are orders of things and not things. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1642-1727) Time is not something objective. It is neither substance nor accident nor relation, but a subjective condition, necessary owing to the nature of the human mind Immanuel Kant (1749 - 1827): Critique of Pure Reason There is no absolute time; to say that two durations are equal is an assertion which has by itself no meaning and which can acquire one only by convention. Henri Poincar\'e La Science et l'Hipoth\`ese 1902 Not only have we no direct intuition of the equality of two durations, but we have not even direct intuition of the simultaneity of two events occurring in different places. Henri Poincar\'e La Science et l'Hipoth\`ese 1902 Relativistic time t'= t / ( 1 - v2/c2 )1/2 Lorentz Henceforth space by itself, and time by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two will preserve an independent reality. Hermann Minkowski I scarcely treat, yet seem already to have come far You see my son, time here becomes space Parsifal (12 c) Past, present, future -- causality It's a poor sort of memory that only works backward. Lewis Carroll The laws of nature are indifferent as to a direction of time. There is no more distinction between past and future than between right and left. Arthur S. Eddington: Gifford Lectures of 1927 (1882 - 1944) We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. (...) An intellect which at any given moment knew all the forces that animate matter and the mutual position of the beings that compose it, if this intellect were vast enough to submit that data to analysis, could condense into a single formula the movement of the greatest bodies of the universe and that of the lightest atom: for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain; and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes. Pierre Simon, Marquis de Laplace (1749 - 1827) The present has a being in nature, the past in memory, and the future no being at all. Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679) For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only the illusion, even if a stubborn one. Albert Einstein (to Besso's family) Miscelanea: Einstein contradicts himself Till now it was believed that time and space existed themselves, even if there was nothing --- no Sun, no Earth, no stars --- while now we know that time and space are not the vessels for the Universe, but could not exist at all if there were no contents, namely, no Sun, no Earth, and other celestial bodies. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) New York Times, 3 December 1919 To this time the conceptions of time and space have been such that if everything in the Universe were taken away, if there were nothing left, there would still be left to man time and space Albert Einstein New York Times, 4 April 1921 Miscelanea: Time travels "Hey, Dad. Can I borrow the Time machine tonight?" "Sure son. Just be sure you have it back before you leave." Miscellanea: What is "now" ? Lord Helmet and his General: What the hell am I looking at? When does this happen in the movie? Now! You're looking at now, sir. Everything that happens now, is happening, now. What happened to then? We're past that. When? Just now. We're now, now. Go back to then. When? Now. Now? Now! I can't. Why? We missed it. When? Just now. (after some rewinding) When will then be now? Soon. Mel Brooks: Spaceballs, 1987

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