« The Big Deal about Big Brother | Main | Walking Without Accident »
February 09, 2007
A stitch in time weighs nine?
Forgive me, but after nearly two years of nearly entirely brand-related postings I'd like to share something I've been musing about. It's a question I'm not even sure quite how best to ask, beyond, "what's the weight of time?"
We talk about, measure, and seem to think about time in two ways. The first is recursive and is best illustrated by the face of your (analog) clock. Every sixty seconds, sixty minutes, twelve hours, one hand comes back around to the same point. And, of course, the motion of the face of your clock or watch mirrors the diurnal rotation of the earth, the 14 day lunar cycle, and the annual rotation of the earth around the sun. Point is, each is measured by a point of return: we're back where we were, so this is the measure.
The second measure of time is linear and may be best illustrated by the passage of years, ages and aeons. The universe is somewhere between 12 and 14 billion years old. The common era began 2007 years ago; when another thousand years have passed, it will have begun 3007 years ago, in 100,000 years it will have begun 102,007 years ago. Of course, this measure is based on the first, but keep in mind that there's a fractional potential in non-recursive systems. That is, while 100 days is, on one hand, equivalent to 100 rotations of the Earth on its axis, 101 days is also 100% of 100 days plus 1%.
Now here's where things get curious.
Imagine you were able to project yourself forward however many hundreds of billions of years into the future (each of those years being a recursive measurement of time)in comfort and safety.
Imagine you were able to project yourself back to nearly the beginning of the measurement of time under the same circumstances.
Now imagine that you were able somehow to compare both the time kept by your watch and your perception of time in the incredibly distant past and future with the passage of time today.
Which of these two measures--recursive, or linear--would best reflect your experience of time? Imagine a fourth dimension in which time has properties similar to those we experience as mass/energy: which measure would best reflect the actual shape of time?
Happy Friday.
Posted by davidkippen at February 9, 2007 08:41 PM