The Physics and Philosophy of Time: Part Two

“What is time?” That is a question that has been pondered and debated for probably thousands of years by some of the finest philosophical and scientific minds ever produced, without any definitive resolution. So, I’m NOT going to pretend that this is THE ANSWER – the be all and end all to the question. It’s some of my thoughts, which hopefully are as valid as anyone else’s!

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

How Old Are You? Well that’s obviously an easy question. You were born on such-an-such a date; today’s date is such-an-such; therefore you are such-an-such old.  Well ‘yes’, and well, ‘no’. The late astronomer Carl Sagan noted that we are all made of ‘star stuff’. That is, with the exception of hydrogen, all the higher chemical elements, which ultimately comprise us (carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, etc), were cooked up in the heart of stellar interiors, at extreme temperatures and pressures. When stars explode (nova and supernova) those elements get spewed out into the cosmos, ultimately to clump together as the stuff from which new solar systems, planets, and life are formed.

However, we can go one step beyond that since, on the other hand, you are ultimately comprised of  fundamental particles like electrons and quarks which in turn make up those chemical elements (atoms) which can combine to form molecules, even the complex biochemical molecules which make you, you. 100% of you ultimately consist of these elementary particles, all of which were created or spewed out when the Universe was created. That’s currently estimated at 13.7 billion years ago, in the cosmological event called the “Big Bang’. In other words, you, being formed out of the elementary particles that collectively make up ‘you’, are the same age as the Universe, some 13.7 billion years old!  So, get in contact with your inner self, meditate with your inner electrons, quarks, hadrons, fermions, leptons, bosons and baryons, and discover the history of the universe, for they were there!

“Play It Sam. Play ‘As Time Goes By’”:  We’ve all heard of the ‘arrow of time’ which points in one direction – from past to present and present to future. It’s related obviously to the concept of entropy, that this left to themselves, things go from an orderly state to a disorderly state – a clean desk gathers dust! A teenager’s bedroom loses neatness as time goes by. One way of dramatically illustrating this concept is to look at a film of some event which runs from past to present to future, and thus looks normal, and then look at the same film running backward – i.e. from the present to the past. We’ve all seen films of a broken egg and associated mess on the kitchen floor mysteriously reassembling, leaping up into the air, and gently landing on the kitchen table top. We KNOW we’re seeing the wrong arrow of time; we know we’re seeing entropy as it isn’t – going from a disordered state to an ordered state. Nature doesn’t happen that way. Or does it?

We’ve all seen paint dry. We can film paint drying. We can tell if that film is running backwards because we know dry paint doesn’t turn into wet paint.

We’ve seen films of a thunderstorm. The lightning flashes, the thunder rumbles, and wind howls, and the rain pelts down. That film in reverse would be obvious, because the thunder rumbles, then the lightning flashes, and though the wind still howls, the rain is pelting upwards!

What if you had a lump of coal? It obviously has some amount of radioactive carbon-14 in it, which slowly but surely decays. If a film showed the amount of radioactive carbon-14 increasing in the lump of coal, you’d guess that the film was being run backwards.

Take a piece of paper and set it on fire. If you saw a film showing the reverse, ashes burning and turning into paper, you’d be pretty dense not to know something wasn’t quite right.

Take a container with a divider in the middle. In one half, fill it with hot coffee. In the other half, fill it with hot cream. Lift out the divider and start filming. Pretty soon the white cream and the black coffee produce a uniform brownish/grey mix. If you saw that film in reverse, you’d be bewitched, bothered and bewildered, because things don’t happen that way.

Lastly, let’s film your life – birth, childhood, teenager, young adult, adult, mature aged citizen, elderly, [until death was finally on the near horizon]. Again, you’d immediately know someone put the film in backwards of you saw yourself growing ever more visibly younger.

Now, instead of filming the BIG PICTURE – drying paint, a thunderstorm, radioactive carbon-14 in coal, burning paper, that nice cup of coffee with cream, and this is your life, let’s film just one elementary particle or atom or molecule contained within each of those events. If you focused on just that one bit particle / atom / molecule, and then ran the film backwards, would anything seem strange? The answer is ‘NO’.

The molecule of paint is there whether of not the wetting agent is arriving or leaving, and the wetting agent, say an alcohol molecule, can potentially arrive just as readily as leave as a molecule of same.

A water molecule (making up a rain drop) can rise into the atmosphere just as readily as it can descend.

Atomic particles can impact and turn an ordinary non-radioactive carbon atom into a radioactive (carbon-14) one. I mean radioactive carbon was somehow created in the first place, so the reverse process obviously can happen. So, even if a particle decays into other particles, the reverse is not anomalous as particles can merge – think of hydrogen fusing into helium (plus energy) in the Sun for example.

The carbon in a molecule of cellulose (paper) will, when the paper is burned, remain an atom of carbon, either as carbon ash or as carbon dioxide. But then carbon, or carbon dioxide, can be incorporated into cellulose, so filming in reverse breaks no laws of physics or chemistry. In other words, chemical reactions are reversible. Hydrogen and oxygen can combine in a ratio of two to one for form water. Water in turn can be broken down by electrolysis into hydrogen and oxygen.

There’s nothing unusual if a molecule of cream goes to the left and a molecule of coffee right next to it goes to the right (i.e. – cream and coffee components separate).

Lastly, each and every particle, atom or molecule in your body doesn’t age. Film any particle, atom or molecule that’s part and parcel of your body, view it backwards, and you wouldn’t notice anything anomalous from the time it becomes part and parcel of you until it leaves. Viewed forward or backward, particles, atoms or molecules enter your body, do their thing, and ultimately get replaced by other particles, atoms or molecules.

So, if the micro components of these macro systems don’t exhibit any preferred arrow of time, or exhibit entropy, or have some sort of inevitable destiny, then in theory, the macro systems can defy the arrow of time or entropy or their inevitable destiny. Paint can un-dry; rain can pelt upwards; atomic particles can make something non-radioactive, radioactive; carbon atoms can participate in reversible chemical reactions; creamy coffee can separate into coffee and cream; and lastly, you don’t apparently have to age (but you probably will anyway). Or, put another way, an electron is immortal, so even though you will age and die, not that its much of a consolation, but all your component particles, etc. ultimately live on (and on, and on) to strut their stuff again, and again.

In conclusion, it would appear that there is a very fundamental difference between time in the macro-universe and time in the micro-universe. It’s almost as if there were two highly different software packages written in order to run the overall Universe, one with an arrow of time and entropy, and one without!

Further recommended readings about time:

Carroll, Sean; From Eternity to Here: The Quest for the Ultimate Theory of Time; Dutton, New York; 2010:

Davies, Paul; About Time: Einstein’s Unfinished Revolution; Penguin Books, London; 1995:

Hawking, Stephen & Penrose, Roger; The Nature of Space and Time; Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey; 1996:

Le Poidevin, Robin; Travels in Four Dimensions: The Enigmas of Space and Time; Oxford University Press, Oxford; 2003:

Lockwood, Michael; The Labyrinth of Time: Introducing the Universe; Oxford University Press, Oxford; 2005:

Mahid, Shahn (Editor); On Space and Time; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2008:

Time: How Old Are You Really?

How old are you? Well that’s obviously an easy question. You were born on such-an-such a date; today’s date is such-an-such; therefore you are such-an-such old. Or are you really? While both the physical you – your body, and the ‘inner you’ - your mind, have a time frame that dates from your conception, there’s a few twists in the tale to be considered.

Firstly, 99.999% of the fundamental constituents (elementary particles and simple atoms) of everything that now comprises you, all those now currently complex and not so complex organic bio-molecules (proteins, amino acids, fatty acids, etc.), as well as the simpler inorganic molecules and atoms (like water, salt and oxygen say) were originally part and parcel of an immense gas and dust cloud that slowly, under gravity, contracted and contracted and ultimately became incorporated into the Sun and associated solar system we see today. That happened some 4.5 billion years ago. All the fundamental bits and pieces that now comprise you have been around doing their thing for all that time. Since all those carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, etc. atoms that now make you, you are 4.5 billion years old, and so in a way that makes you 4.5 billion years old. But wait, that vast interstellar dust and gas cloud that came together 4.5 billion years ago didn’t just pop into existence then. They had an earlier history. 

The late Carl Sagan noted that we are all ultimately made however of ‘star stuff’. That is, with the exception of hydrogen, all the higher chemical elements, which ultimately comprise us (carbon, oxygen, iron, sodium, etc), were cooked and manufactured in the heart of stellar interiors, at extreme temperatures and pressures. When stars explode (nova and supernova) those elements get spewed out into the cosmos as interstellar gas and dust, ultimately to clump as the stuff from which new solar systems, planets, and life are formed. In addition, the even greater extremes of temperature and pressures experienced when stars go ka-boom assist in the creation of even more complex atoms, like silver and gold and uranium. These elements too get incorporated into the next generation of stars and planets, and if biologically useful, into any life forms that may develop – like you.

So the bits and pieces that clumped together 4.5 billion years ago to make up our Sun and our solar system and our Earth – and you 4.5 billion years later – came from stuff comprising a myriad of earlier stars and solar systems that died natural deaths in the stellar cataclysms that are the fate of stellar objects over a certain mass. Some of that earlier generational ‘star stuff’ has found its way to be a part of the current you.  

Since all of that earlier generational stuff came from objects that existed as part and parcel of that mass of stellar objects we call the Milky Way Galaxy, and since our galaxy has existed with its quota of stuff for roughly 10 billion years, well in a manner of speaking, the bits and pieces that make up you can trace their history back 10 billion years. But the stuff comprising the Milky Way Galaxy didn’t pop into existence 10 billion years ago. Their history goes back even further, back before our galaxy existed.

However, we can go one step beyond that since, on the other hand, you are ultimately comprised of  fundamental particles like electrons and quarks which in turn make up those chemical elements (atoms) which can combine to form molecules, even the complex biochemical molecules which make you, you. 100% of you ultimately consist of these particles, all of which were created when the Universe was created. That’s also the event that created the universal supply of hydrogen and helium. The Universe, as best we can tell came into existence in the Big Bang event some 13.7 billion years ago. In other words, you are ultimately the same age as the Universe, some 13.7 billion years old! 

Of course the next step backwards is, was there a ‘before the Big Bang’? The answer to that is nobody knows. Many postulate that the Big Bang was the first cause; others argue that the Big Bang itself had a cause – say the Big Crunch of a previous universe, in itself comprised of stuff. So, in theory, if you keep going back and back and back ever endlessly back, you might be infinitely old! In makes a sort of satisfying sense – one universe dies and gives rise to the next generation universe, just like some of our earlier stars die but ultimately their ‘star stuff’ gives rise to the next generation of stars, planets and life – like you.

So, get in contact with your inner self, meditate with your inner quarks, hadrons, fermions, leptons, bosons and baryons, and discover the history of the Universe, for they were there!

Oh, and in a manner of speaking, you will achieve immortality, or at least achieve the same age as our Universe does, since even after there’s no more physical you as in body, or ‘inner you’ as in mind, all those fundamental bits and pieces that currently make up your body and your mind will keep on keeping on, strutting their stuff. Their tale isn’t yet finished – even if you ultimately will be.