Time will eventually come to an end.
Alright, we’re going to start off by blowing your mind and sending you reeling into a deep pit of weight loss, psychic readings, and open intellectual despair. Physicists are of the belief that time one day will simply cease to exist. These intellectuals have come to the conclusion, based on their own confusing calculations, that the concept of time, and the life of all those who adhere to it, will end some time in the next 4 billion years. The reason for this ‘sudden’ ending of everything: a cataclysmic catastrophe that is so large and so enduring that existence will simply stop. Now before you get too depressed: 4 billion years is a pretty large sum of time and these same scientists thoroughly believe that nobody will be alive at the time to see existence come to an end. That doesn’t sound nearly as optimistic as we thought, in retrospect.
Time will eventually come to an end
The Soviet Union tried to change week lengths.
Probably one of the most common ways we measure time is by ascribing it to ‘weeks’. We measure how long a baby has been alive in terms of weeks. We plan our vacations for weeks at a time. The seven day week has been instilled into our life for thousands of years, finding its roots in the bible. The Soviet Union, ever the contrary country, had tried to change the seven day week back in 1929. The government wanted to try working with five or six day weeks. The reason? We’re not sure, to be honest. Perhaps the USSR wanted to just be different. Perhaps this was a ploy to separate the Soviet Union from the Western World. No matter their reason the execution failed spectacularly. The new schedules created massive confusion and the Soviet Union ended up going back to the regular seven day week in 1940. The Soviet Union gets points for trying. We just aren’t sure what they were trying to prove, here. Perhaps we’ll revisit our online college degree in history in order to learn.
The Soviet Union tried to change week lengths
Egyptians invented watches back in 1500 BCE.
As long as people have roamed this planet there have been those trying to capture time into a measurable device. Nowadays we have watches and cell phones and computers but technology wasn’t always on our side. Perhaps this makes what the Egyptians did back in 1500 BCE all the more impressive. Back then Egyptians created a device that used the casting of a shadow to measure time. The shadow would cast itself over a crossbar and then fall into a segment of a wound up gear. This device would slowly turn, thus allowing the owner to have an approximate idea as to the time of day. If these sorts of devices interest you in any meaningful way then you can dive into the study of horology. The study of horology is focused on devices that were created with the sole purpose of measuring time.
Egyptians invented watches back in 1500 BCE
Greek mythology personified Time as a God, Chronos.
If you are a mythology nerd then you probably know this fact already but we’ll go ahead for the kids in back of the class. Greek mythology has a whole range of God figures in their lore and they range from personifications of love and lust all the way to anger and war, with everything in between getting represented. Chronos is the Greek’s God like personification of time. In Greek mythology Chronos is depicted as an old, bent man with a huge gray beard. Chronos means ‘time’ and you can trace the word all throughout pop culture as well. Do not confuse Chronos with Kronos, however, as they are two very different figures in the lore of mythology. Kronos is the father of Zeus and he is a much less chill person than old Chronos.
Greek mythology personified Time as a God, Chronos
Time speeds up as we age.
When you were a kid you probably felt like Summer Vacation lasted an entire year when in reality it lasted only a couple of weeks. Don’t worry, you aren’t alone in this belief! As it turns out time speeds up as we grow older because our perspective changes thanks to a variety of reasons. Time seems slower when we are younger because there is much less of our life to compare against. Two months to a ten year old is a large percentage of their life. Two months to a thirty year old is a tiny percentage, barely worth recognizing. We also run out of new experiences to partake in as we age, thus creating a more subdued understanding of time as it passes us by.
Time speeds up as we age
A small zircon is the oldest object on Earth.
Time gets really trippy when you start to consider the age of materials that have been floating throughout the universe. As we are a part of the universe those materials tend to hit our planet and end up in our backyard, on occasion. The oldest object on Earth, that we know about, is a tiny piece of zircon that was located and excavated in Western Australia from the Jack Hills. The zircon is estimated to be 4.4 billion years old. That number is even more impressive when you consider that it is younger than the Earth by only 160 million years. One day we assume we will find something on the planet that is older than the planet. Yet we have not done so yet.
A small zircon is the oldest object on Earth
The Sun is barely older than the Earth.
As we pointed out above the Earth is roughly 4.5 million years. In terms of the universe at large we probably seem like a spring chicken or a tiny child. When we look at the Sun in our solar system we tend to think of it as this ageless device of heat and life, yet that isn’t the case. As it turns out the sun is roughly five billion years old according to scientists which would make it our slightly older brother in the grand scheme of things.
The Sun is barely older than the Earth
According to Einstein time did not always exist.
Now we are getting really out there due to the nature of this speculative science. Albert Einstein, who we will quote again later, believes that time did not always exist. According to Einstein’s accepted theory of relativity time and space did not exist over 13.7 million years ago. According to Einstein time and space were smashed up into a tiny, microscopic ball. Time is measured via motion and since there was no movement before the Big Bang there was no time. Makes our head swim, really.
According to Einstein time did not always exist
How you understand time is related to your culture.
This fact might make you go “oh, that makes sense” but we doubt you have heard of it yet. According to scientific studies your understanding of time will change based on the culture that you were raised in. Most Americans and Europeans tend to think of time in intervals of just five minutes. If you were born and raised in the Middle East then you would think of time in 15 minute intervals. This means that 5 minutes in America feels like 15 minutes in the Middle East. Isn’t that crazy?
How you understand time is related to your culture
Physicists Don’t Believe in the ‘Now’.
Albert Einstein was a pretty smart guy by all accounts and his work has been used as a header for some of the greatest innovations of all time. So it should particularly blow your mind when your online colleges teach you about his belief in time. Albert Einstein, like many physicists, does not believe in the ‘present’ or ‘now’. Einstein said, “The distinction between past, present, and future is only an illusion.” Pretty mind blowing stuff, right? If you hadn’t learned this yet then you are probably struggling to wrap your mind around the concept of no ‘now’. Einstein and those with an understanding of physics thoroughly believe that there is no such thing as time. Matter is matter, which cannot be created or destroyed, and time is only a box created by mankind to judge the world around them. This is pretty heavy stuff to read before breakfast. Double up the bacon, please.
Physicists Don’t Believe in the ‘Now’
