The Concept of Time

"Time the devourer of everything."
(Ovid, Roman Poet)

The science page is going through an experimental format for a few months this year. I would be most appreciative of some feedback, and whether you would like to retain this new format. There will be the usual article, then a short biography of someone who contributed enormously to science, and lastly, there will be a word or concept of the month, related to the background science in the article.

"Physical space was thus extended to a four dimensional space which also included the dimension of time.
"The four dimensional space of the special theory of relativity is just as rigid and absolute as Newton's space."
(Albert Einstein, Theoretical Physicist)

There is no proper definition of time. Or, to put it another way, there are too many different definitions of time. I could quote the Oxford English Reference Dictionary, which starts off one and a half columns with "the indefinite continued progress of existence, events, etc., in past, present or future regarded as a whole" – which is a bit of a waffle, in my opinion. I might (and will) try to explain time as it is understood in the Special Theory of Relativity, where time is a part of the Space/Time Continuum; in short, time and distance are considered equivalent to each other. I could go into a detailed discussion of Planck Time, when the universe was newborn and space, time, matter and energy were all of the same substance, and gravity didn’t exist. There are so many philosophical discussions and definitions, that I’d be from now until next year listing them, things like causal determinism and ‘time as an experience’.

So, what is time? Einstein spent a great deal of thought on the subject, and came up with both his Special and General Theories of Relativity, based on how he saw the structure of the universe in relation to time and space. Einstein didn’t see time or space as absolutes, but as aspects of a reference framework containing everything within it; the notorious Space/Time Continuum. He believed that time slowed down the faster you travelled, especially as you approached the speed of light, hence the Twin Paradox. If one twin travels out into space at high speeds, and the other twin remains on Earth, the planet-bound twin will age faster relative to their sibling. Individually, each twin will experience time passing at the same pace; the older twin hasn’t been given ‘more’ time nor has the younger twin undergone backwards time-travel. Hence the use of the word, Relativity, as time varies in speed relative only to an independent observer and not in actuality for the twins.

Other physicists have tried to pin the structure of time down, but they still haven’t even proven if time has an actual ‘one-way’ flow, like entropy. The idea of this one-way movement is often referred to as ‘Time’s Arrow’, poetic, and quite a good metaphor. There is another way of expressing this, philosophically, it is ‘you can never cross the same river twice’; you can never live the same moment over again – unless you’re an actor in the “Groundhog Day” movie. But if time is a similar force to entropy, one day the flow will cease…time will stop, but it won’t run backwards. That would mean the ‘river’ was now running back uphill.

Time is not just one thing. It is a complex interweaving of both physics and philosophy.

Memorable People in Science
Augusta Ada King, countess of Loveless

Ada Byron was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron and his wife Annabella Byron, and she was born on the 10th of December, 1815. Within weeks of her birth, her mother separated from her notorious womaniser of a father, and Lady Byron was awarded sole custody of their daughter.. Sadly, she was never to meet with her father, who left England and had little opportunity to return before tragically dying from a chill at the age of 36. Ada was only nine when he perished. Ada wasn’t Lord Byron’s only daughter, but she was his only legitimate child.

Lady Byron wasn’t going to let her daughter grow up to be as wild and wicked as her father. Lady Byron had a strong interest in mathematics, and so she had the child brought up as a mathematician and a scientist; this was quite a unique education for a girl of that era, when women were treated as pretty ornaments and were trained to be hostesses of their husbands’ parties. Still, the imaginative and poetical side of her nature couldn’t be completely suppressed, and it showed in her inventive flights of speculation that mingled within her intellectual writings.

As an adult, Ada was to associate with Mary Fairfax Somerville - the Science Queen of her day, Sir David Brewster - the originator of the kaleidoscope, Charles Wheatstone – the inventor of the concertina and the electric telegraph, Charles Dickens – the popular writer, and Michael Faraday – the chemist and physicist. But her most famous friend and collaborator was Sir Charles Babbage, known as the Father of Computing.

Ada met Sir Charles at one of his parties, and soon was working with him to describe his planned Analytical Machine. Ada made lengthy predictions on how the machine would revolutionise industry and science, such as how the machine might be used to compose intricate and complex music, or be used to produce exacting diagrams and graphics. It was Ada who suggested to Babbage about writing a plan, a plan for how the engine might be used to calculate Bernoulli numbers. This plan is now regarded as the first "computer program."

Poor Ada lived to be no older than her father. She died of uterine cancer, well before she had a chance to blossom into the promise of her intellect.

Word/Concept of the Month

Relativity: the dependence of observations on the relative motion of the observer and the observed object; the branch of Physics that deals with the description of space and time allowing for this.

The Oxford English Reference Dictionary

I’ve mentioned the Twin Paradox. Relativity also attempts to explain other strange events. The best one to give you (or me) a headache: The Speed of Light as a constant. This means that if you are stationary, and turn on a flashlight, that beam of light will be travelling at the Speed of Light. And yet, the beam from a flashlight attached to the nose of an airborne jet travels at the Speed of Light, and not at Light Speed plus whatever speed the jet is going. Instead, an observer’s perception of the light is altered by the Doppler Effect, the wavelength changing whether the light is travelling towards the observer, or travelling away from the observer. I have to go lie down for a minute…