Apologies to anyone hoping for my "What is a Sport?" post today. Instead I'm going to write about the "Through the Wormhole" episode I was so excited to see. Overall, I wasn't terribly impressed with the theories I heard, especially with regards to time not existing, although there WERE a few other interesting ideas.
The arguement against time existing came from an equation derived in the 60s, in which Einstein's Theory of Relativity was plugged into a quantum mechanics formula. What happened was the time variables disappeared/canceled out leading to the conclusion that time does not exist. Well, I mentioned in a response comment last week that phyisics of the very big (relativity) is quite different than the physics of the very small (quantum physics), so either one wouldn't expect them to combine mathematically or combining them would lead to the current Holy Grail of theoretical physics, the Theory of Everything! I happen to fall in the former opinion... though I reserve the right to change my mind one day.
The first interesting point was made by a neuroscientist who believes that time is engrained in the brain somehow. He performs an experiment where people are asked to click a computer mouse which causes a colored circle to appear on a computer screen. When the experiment began, the colored circle would appear immediately upon the click of the mouse. Then the timing was changed so the circle would appear 1/10th of a second after the mouse was clicked. Once the subject became accustomed to the delay, the circle would revert back to being simultaneous with the mouse click. After reverting the timing, the subjects would report that the circle was appearing BEFORE they actually clicked the mouse! The neuroscientist related this outcome to people with schizophrenia who he believes have a faulty time keeper in the brain that doesn't allow them to see some cause and effect relationships. The correlation being that a person with schizophrenia thinks effects occur (circle appears) before he or she causes them (clicking the mouse), when in reality he or she does cause the effects.
The second interesting pondering point was that we all live in the past due to the nano and microseconds it takes our brains to process all of the signals and stimuli it receives. Sort of like us on Earth seeing sunlight over 8 and a half minutes after it leaves the sun but on a much, much faster scale.
The third idea I found to be fun was from a physicist/musician. He said we currently accept that time moves linnearly in one direction. But he believes that time, like space, may have more than one dimension! He wasn't able to expound much on that other than to say the extra time dimension(s) is(are) invisible -- just like linnear time.
There you have it. My book report, er, uh, TV report. Be thankful it was the abridged version!
Peace,
Just Joe
NEXT WEEK: What is a Sport?
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